For those expecting a baseball movie, The Babe is less about baseball and more about a man who never had a family and was spending his life trying to find one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 5, 2021

Ninth-inning attempts to probe the darker side of Ruth's life and his shabby treatment at the hands of baseball during his declining years are no more compelling than the rest of this by-the-numbers bio.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 9, 2014

It's not a bad movie. But its sentiments are faster than its reflexes. By the time it tries to uncoil a home-run swing, the ball has already vanished.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

Goodman should have been perfect for the title role: like Ruth, he's a regular Joe of hugely irregular proportions in appetite and accomplishment. Too bad Hiller and Fusco cut him down to size.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

It doesn`t matter that these things really happened, because the thin staging and sentimental exaggeration make them seem extremely phony in any case.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 9, 2014

While Goodman renders a portrait of Babe Ruth that in some ways is bigger than the Bambino himself, the film fails to arouse the imagination of its audience the way the ballplayer thrilled his more than 60 years ago.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

An honestly unheroic view of a hero, with a grand-slam performance by John Goodman.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

It's a movie with a heart as big as the Babe's and a story line as untidy as his eating binges.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 9, 2014

John Goodman perfectly captures the hero's commitment, enthusiasm, insecurity and weaknesses, and helps distract from the fact that the film is episodic, not cinematic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2014

Goodman was born to play this role, but John Fusco was not born to write this screenplay, and Arthur Hiller was not born to direct this movie.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

What could have been the Raging Bull of baseball movies becomes the nibble of a mouse on the legend of a giant.

Full Review | May 9, 2014

Thanks to Goodman and the great Ruth mystique, The Babe does maintain a median level of entertainment. But somehow you want a movie about a fellow this big-natured and mythic to hit a home run. What we have here is more of a solid base hit.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 9, 2014

Like Goodman's attempts to connect with the ball, The Babe lacks follow-through.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 9, 2014

John Goodman's performance deserves to be seen. I just wish I could say that for the rest of the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5.4 | Apr 15, 2013

Goodman inspires extraordinary empathy.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 7, 2011

Despite Haxell Wexler's alluring lensing, this thinly dramatized, overly episodic Babe Ruth biopic resembles a telepic that has lost its way onto the big screen.

Full Review | Sep 3, 2009

Surprisingly interesting, even if you don't know a home run from a stolen base.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 19, 2005

The Babe is an entertaining and plausible depiction of one of America's greatest legends.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 5, 2005

Goodman as Babe Ruth has good moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 29, 2005