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BATTLEFIELD
BASEBALL
AKA:
Battlefield Stadium ||
Hell Stadium
Year:
2003 Reviewer: Phil
Mills
Seido
High is a unique school to say the least. It's a huge
underachiever that is filled with eccentric teachers and
hardcore bullies, all of whom seem have very little time for
promoting the school's good name. That is except when it
comes to baseball which is a passionate pastime of the
principal and the only activity in which the pupils seem to
excel. Preparing his star players, Seiko look set to
mount a serious challenge on the championship this year or at
least that is until they discover that they will have to face
the legendary Gedo High - a team consisting of the living dead
who take no "living" prisoners. All seems to
be lost until a new boy appears on the scene who possesses
incredible throwing powers that are sure to trouble even the
most hardened of baseball veterans. Now if they can only
recruit him they could become competitors again but even if
they manage that, will his powers be enough to battle the
vicious Gedo High or will they all wind up being massacred on
the playing field.
From
the reviews and previews that filtered through to me for 'Battlefield Baseball', the movie was billed as an exciting blend of insane action
and tongue-in-cheek horror that had pushed it firmly towards
cult status. However, the reality is in fact nowhere near any of
these predictions and the film is more akin to a quirky, and very typically Japanese, comedy that is inspired by
comic books more than anything else. Unfortunately though, it
isn't the lost ark of Japanese spoofs as the shallow plot and
pointless character predicaments combined with somewhat fruitless
direction mean that in terms of
entertainment, the film seems to be over almost as quickly as
it began. Kitamura's bland backdrop of the good vs.
evil baseball teams is handled poorly with no real heart or
even a solid storyline, its just as simple as a bunch of school kids
battling it out at baseball with a handful of half decent gags thrown
in. It is however the various action movie and video game
parodies that do earn it the majority of points for my final mark
because
Sakaguchi's send up of the hero always seems to be right on
the money and a couple of the routines do actually hit home
runs (pun intended!).
Quite
what Kitamura had planned when he created the action for
'Battlefield Baseball' remains a mystery to me as it certainly
doesn't live up to the film's billing as cult "action"
entertainment and displays very little of the genius
that was evident within 'Versus'.
For the majority of it's running time the movie promises far more
than it delivers, creating a substantial atmosphere before a
supposed combat sequence and then cutting away at the vital point
only to pan back and show the resulting aftermath. All this does is leave the
viewer in a constant state of expectancy and even the rare
times that the over-the-top comedy does cover up the flaws in
the action it still lacks any flair for the original. This could all be forgiven
though if the film was
aiming for the 'Evil Dead' style black comedy with grotesque
gore gags but even these efforts fall relatively flat. The
majority of the undead characters look poor thanks to ultra
cheap makeup effects and the extremely obvious rubber body parts
that fly around only provide unintentional amusement which is
a sign of desperation when you resort to laughing at the
shoddy effects.
So
is 'Battlefield Baseball' a film that Kitamura fans (or anyone
else for that matter) should rush out and buy? Well in my
opinion the obvious answer would have to be "no"
simply because I felt that I spent the entire running time waiting for something more significant to occur.
I'm sure somewhere out there people are screaming at
the screen saying that this movie is unsung genius but when a
film seems to come up empty in the so many departments and never
ventures beyond the odd comedic highlight, it falls short for
me and this means 'Battlefield Baseball' remains a skeleton
that can stay firmly lodged in Kitamura's closet.
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