EVERYONE’S HERO

JOHN DEBNEY

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As Heard in the Film review by Clark Douglas: I would love to tell you that "Everyone's Hero", the final film project of disabled "Superman" star Christopher Reeve, is an inspirational tribute to the man's courage. I'd like to tell you that it's a heartwarming kid's movie that will make you laugh and cry. I'd like to tell you that it's the sort of charming little movie that will give you the warm fuzzies. But I simply can't. "Everybody's Hero" is a mawkish embarrassment of a children's film, misbegotten in nearly every department. I just don't know where to begin.

After Reeve's death, a bunch of talented people decided to get together and finish his little passion project. The likes of Rob Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, William H. Macy, and numerous others lent their voice to the movie, and animation experts Colin Brady and Dan St. Pierre came in to finish directing the movie. Sadly, the film runs into one of the problems plaguing so many animated films these days... an overabundance of star talent, but a lack of vocal talent. Some great actors simply aren't great at voiceover work, or (more frequently) simply don't have the right voice for their character. Consider Robin Williams, who appears in the movie unbilled. Williams is generally brilliant with voiceover material, and quite versatile, but "Everyone's Hero" even manages to make him seem out-of-place. Williams provides the voice for a swaggering fat man, but his voice sounds nothing like a swaggering fat man's voice, and oddly, Williams doesn't even alter things to try and compensate. At least half the characters in "Everybody's Hero" suffer from the same disconnect.

The story revolves around a little kid named Yankee Irving, who is on a mission to find Babe Ruth's stolen bat and return to the Babe in time for the Yankees to win the World Series. On his journey, he is accompanied by a loud-mouthed talking baseball (Reiner), and eventually the sassy talking bat herself (Whoopi Goldberg). The filmmakers seem to get a big kick out of the idea of a baseball and a bat talking and being sarcastic. That's their whole shtick, and there's nothing more to them... and those two characters have more dialogue than anyone or anything else in the movie. It would help if they were at least funny, but they're merely shrill... Reiner in particular seems to think that his level of humor increases every time he raises his voice a decibel, but no matter how loud you yell, "Ow! I hit my head!", it doesn't get any more amusing. Perhaps that's a harsh criticism for this sort of movie, since it's obviously aimed at the 3-6 year-old crowd... but unlike other recent movies aimed only at young kids ("Curious George" or "Pooh's Heffalump Movie"), this one fails to be even remotely competent, cute, or even tolerable.

The movie is set in the 1930's, but the humor (with several modern pop culture references) and especially the soundtrack prevent anything from feeling authentic. The light rock/pop songs that litter the movie are provided by the likes of Five for Fighting, Brooks and Dunn, Raven-Symone, Lonestar (who provide a cringe-inducing rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game") and others. Considerably more appropriate is John Debney's score. Debney is one of the most reliable composers in the business, and as such, is also one of the most predictable. He's covered this genre so very many times, and he does an adequate job every time, and he does it the same way every time. Stock mickey-mousing cartoon music is plentiful, and so are the soft piano-led cues for all the sentimental moments. Still, as usual, Debney manages to write all of this in a very professional manner, and include some highlights, too. A few scenes feature typical, but nonetheless enjoyable "heroic sports music" cues, with triumphant melodies and so on, and Debney also peppers a few bits with some period jazz. All told, a solid job well done, but for the 2,156th time in his career, Debney is playing second string, filling in the gaps between the songs. The soundtrack album contains just two score cues – “The Tigers” and “At Bat”, the former of which features the vocal talents of former American Idol finalist Paris Bennett.

Avoid "Everyone's Hero" like the plague. The movie is ultimately an embarrassment to the memory of Christopher Reeve, an animated film that ranks in the same class as "Valiant" and "Doogal". I'm really getting discouraged about the current state of computer-animated movies. When they first came out, they all seemed so full of magic and beauty and possibilities, with filmmakers like John Lasseter and Andrew Adamson utilizing their tools at hand to create funny, delightful new worlds. Now, these movies are being churned out every other week, and many of them have fallen into a tired rut, relying on overused jokes, recycled character, inappropriate celebrity voice casting, and weak pop culture references. I sincerely hope that in the future, we'll see more computer-animated films like "Cars" or "Monster House", and less like "Everyone's Hero". Given the previews I've been seeing lately... that seems unlikely.

Track Listing: Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax 82876-88918-2 (2006)

Running Time: ##:##

Music composed and conducted by John Debney. Orchestrations by Brad Dechter, Frank Bennett, Kevin Kaska, Andrew Kinney, Christopher Klatman, Don Nemitz, John Ashton Thomas and Mike Watts. Special vocal performances by Paris Bennett. Recorded and mixed by Robert Fernandez. Edited by Jeff Carson, Andrew Dorfman and Tanya Noel Hill. Score produced by John Debney.

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