A movie about baseball can be enjoyed by someone who cares nothing about baseball, but I doubt that Field of Dreams is one of them. It excessively romanticizes the game, declaring it to be the essence of all that is good about America, so much so that it even glorifies the men who threw the 1919 World Series. What kind of statement about America is that?

But if that were not challenge enough, the movie also involves some kind of supernatural reality in which we are all supposed to follow our dreams and fulfill our destiny. But since some people make bad choices, it is the destiny of Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) to correct some of those bad choices, including his own, and make everything all right again.

And even that might not be so bad if it were not for the movie’s relentless insipid attitude about the wonder of it all.