Major League II MPAA Rating: PG Entertainment: +2 1/2 Content: -2

The original MAJOR LEAGUE comedy ended with the Cleveland Indians baseball team making it to the division play-offs. Now the team is owned by the inept Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), who is trying to pull it out of a slump. The team players are still a motley assortment of comical characters, including Eric Bruskatter as a disturbed, childlike catcher who has trouble throwing the ball back to pitcher. Then there's Dennis Haysbert, a tall black player, who's into eastern mysticism and Buddha worship. Other humor is provided by a very outspoken, irate fan and the comical base stealing antics of Wally Hagen, one of the team's long distance hitters. The team's new coach, played by Tom Berrenger, shows some promise of bringing the team around, but not until they become determined to win for their former coach, who's been hospitalized. Even their star pitcher, Rich "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) regains his winning ways. And of course, the story comes to a rousing finale when the team competes against Chicago for the American League championship.

The original 1989 film was rated R and has many obscenities and much bathroom humor. It was encouraging when this sequel came out with a PG rating, but it definitely deserves to be PG-13. One of the players grabs his crotch during a game and the catcher recites suggestive lingerie ads to overcome his psychological hangups. Most of the players are decent, likable fellows but manage to use a number of obscenities and crude sexual slang. They are usually spoken in a comical context which tends to make viewers more tolerant and accepting of them. Fortunately, though, there's no sexual content or nudity in the film. Some of the humor is developed around the black player's religious mysticism. MAJOR LEAGUE II has some promise as a baseball comedy, but strikes out when it bats around so much offensive language and crude humor.

Preview Reviewer: John Evans
Distributor: Warner Bros., 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522