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Critics Consensus: Field of Dreams is sentimental, but in the best way; it's a mix of fairy tale, baseball, and family togetherness.
Critic Consensus: Field of Dreams is sentimental, but in the best way; it's a mix of fairy tale, baseball, and family togetherness.
All Critics (58) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (8) | DVD (9)
In Costner, writer-director Robinson has found the perfect player for a personal-stakes game, a guy with a leg-it-out intensity and kidlike enthusiasm. It's Costner's eye-on-the-ball exuberance that carries Dreams past its often mechanical aesthetic ...
All of this would work better if Robinson built up the reality of the town more, made the citizens a more palpable presence, as Frank Capra did in Hollywood's greatest fable-fantasy, It's a Wonderful Life.
The sentimentality, of which there is plenty, is nicely balanced by a humor of ironic pragmatism, as when Ray, having built his baseball field as a monument to human dreams, decides to charge tourists $20 a head to visit it.
Despite a lovely cameo turn by Burt Lancaster, Field of Dreams is the male weepie at its wussiest.
The life-equals-baseball masterpiece still packs an unexpected kick.
Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence: a game that stands for unsullied innocence in a cruel, imperfect world.
It's hard to imagine a cynicism so hardened that it won't crumble at the sight of a lush green baseball field nestled into an Iowa cornfield and at this movie's final inspiring scene of youth and innocence recaptured.
... view baseball as much a business as a sport and can't imagine getting gushy over such mush.
If you like to think of every time at bat as a new hope, if you can taste a kind of poetry along with the hot dogs they serve at the ballpark, if you like to imagine that life is meant to be good, and miracles aren't out of the question... go see [it].
Rightfully a ballgame classic, this is sentimental nonsense, sure, but charmingly so.
This fantasy drama from director Phil Alden Robinson is a delightful blend of the blind-fate story and the more fanciful feel-good corn of Frank Capra.
Field of Dreams isn't a home run. It's more like a suicide squeeze: if it hadn't been perfectly executed, it wouldn't have worked. But as they say in baseball, a run is a run.
The truest definition of a magical film, with great performances, one of the most beautiful scores I can remember and a touching narrative that is not about baseball as it is about going the distance and making amends with the past - and the ending is simply wonderful.
Super Reviewer
Is the film 100% perfect? No, but it's damn close. Kevin Costner leads with a powerhouse performance, being told by "the voice of god" to build something in order to have someone come. Once he realizes it is a field he must build, in order to have his most beloved player on the field, he gives himself a mission, which has him travelling across the globe, trying his best to accomplish the tasks at hand. As this is happening, the bank is about to foreclose on his home. This film really tells the incredible story of how life itself is more important than any tangible thing. The direction is brilliant, the script is wonderful, and the performances are true. I loved "Field of Dreams" from start to finish. One of my all-time favourite films revolving around sports/family!
It's delightful for what it is...but what it is is a movie about ghost baseball players that I wouldn't watch over and over again, unlike Die Hard. Once is enough :~P The beginning has a nice thrillery feel, and I enjoy how Ray's wife is happily supportive, but when it becomes a buddy road trip movie, the flimsy connections between Terence Mann and Doc Graham just don't cut the cheap ballpark mustard.
The premise of someone building a baseball diamond over his corn field because a voice and a vision told him to may sound a bit silly. But it's presented so convincingly and charmingly that you're easily on Ray's side and curious about what his journey through modern US American (sports) myths) has in store for him. The more often the voice returns, the more fantastic the film gets without ever becoming ludicrous or giving up its sweet sense of humor. Costner is of course the perfect man to play that leading role. The rest of the cast delivers excellent performances as well, especially James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster fill their lovable characters with so much charisma. How all this makes perfect sense in the end is nothing less than a fairy tale, but a sweet, charming one that will leave you with a satisfied grin on your face. There's a feel-good-movie, if I ever saw one. And you don't even have to be into Baseball to love this.
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