It's so rare for a computer-animated film, that isn't Pixar. to win my heart, but Everyone's Hero plays like a trip to an actual baseball stadium. No matter if the game is scoreless, your favorite teams is trailing, or whatever, the atmosphere and feeling makes it all worthwhile. Everyone's Hero is a formulaic, tale in the flesh, but the voice-acting, characters, plot, and the fun script make it shine thru its roots.
I've mentioned before that CGI animation is sadly killing hand-drawn animation, Everyone's Hero seems like a nineties animated feature that was reincarnated into a 2006 animated film. This one has more of a nostalgic 1930's appearance, so no doubt it will appeal to the baseball son and his former card-collecting father. But it will also spark a soft spot with lovers of "unlikely hero" type films, or just fans of animated films. It pleases on every level.
The plot: Yankee Irving (Voiced by Jake T. Austin) is a perky little baseball fan, until his dad gets fired from being the janitor at Yankee Stadium when Babe Ruth's "lucky" bat named "Darlin'" goes missing. Yankee saw someone come in the locker-room, who told him to get out, and he's positive that was the guy. He learns from a talking baseball name Screwy (Reiner) who he found at his baseball diamond, the sandlot, that the person who stole the bat is Lefty Maginnis (Macy).
So Yankee and Screwy set off to go to Chicago, the place where the Yankees and, Lefty's team, the Cubs are going to play to win the World Series. Yankee and Screwy wind up getting Babe's talking bat Darlin' (Goldberg) back early on, and now the three are off to get to Babe as quickly as possible.
Everyone's Hero's purpose is to inspire, inform, and entertain. Inspire because it includes a tear-jerking, precious end scene that, while is cliché in the books, is nonetheless beautiful and heartwarming. It informs you about baseball by reminding adults when they were young how much they loved the game, and may even win the hearts of some younger kids when they see this. And, it's entertaining as can be.
The voice acting is done extraordinarily as recognizable voices plague the screen. While this isn't the smoothest animated feature in terms of animation, because of its blocky, strange imagery in times, it still is covered up by the soft and warm feeling the film brings from start to finish.
I hope one day that parents will rent or buy this film for their kid, leaving other family films like Big Daddy, Despicable Me, and Scooby-Doo on the shelves. It's not often a film like this comes out, and to have all of those films make millions of dollars, when this barely gets seen is appalling. Everyone's Hero deserves as much recognition as a Pixar film. It's that beautiful and stunning in its execution.
But is it better? By no means. But is it following in the footsteps, or on its way to be something like that? Yes.
Voiced by: Jake T. Austin, Rob Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Brian Dennehy, and William H. Macy.