Bad News Bears

source: Bad News Bears

Some of you may be wondering what exactly the "Bad News" in "Bad News Bears" really means. Well it is supposed to mean bad news for the other teams in their baseball league, as it did in the original movie. Howevair, with this movie it means bad news for the viewers. All kidding aside, it really eats monster butt. Sure, there are a few good one liners (3 maximum), but not nearly enough to hold the movie together or make it enjoyable for that matter. Oh, and if you are a fan of the art of acting at all, it's a good move to side-step this one. The child acting is HORRENDOUS on all accounts, nearly making it unwatchable. But definitely making it un-rewatchable. Then there are the lame updates in the script only topped in horribility by the complete changes to it. Fans of the original don't taint your memories with this god awful movie.

Heavy drinking, cranky former baseball player Morris Buttermaker (Billy Bob Thornton) is recruited to coach a Little League team full of misfits. Can he turn the team around and lead them to the championship, despite caring only about his paycheck? The original Bad News Bears was pretty good. It had an original story and a lot of funny and interesting characters. The remake tells the same story but it has a lot less heart than the original. The misfits story has been done a lot since the original has been released. The remake seems to be just another retelling of the same story minus the interesting characters, fun and comedy. The film did have potential though. It's from the director of School of Rock and the writer of Bad Santa. Add in Billy Bob Thornton and you get a nice lineup. Unfortunately, the film is average at best. The cast isn't very good. Sure, there's Billy Bob Thornton and he raises the film to mediocrity but most of the kids were awful. Thornton plays the same character from Bad Santa. If you liked that film than you will probably like him here too. He's no Walter Matthau but at least he was kind of funny. The kids in the original film were mostly all funny and interesting. The same cannot be said for the remake. All the kids seemed out of place and none of them were really that funny. The worst had to be the girl who played Amanda. I didn't expect her to be as good as Tatum but she was the worst choice for the role. Yeah, she can play baseball really well but she can't act at all. All the other kids were mostly forgettable except maybe the kid who played Tanner. There's also Marcia Gay Harden and Greg Kinnear but neither do anything special. I thought that the comedy seemed forced. Most of the kids were more annoying than funny and some seemed awkward in front of the camera. The movie starts off promising in the beginning but than becomes dull and most of the jokes fall flat. They also kept reusing jokes throughout the entire film so it became tiresome to see the same thing being used over and over again. The ending is also a little overdone. They could have edited it a little but I guess they wanted each bad player on their team to do something for the team. I wouldn't call the remake a complete travesty but it was certainly unnecessary. In the end, I was expecting so much more from this and came out disappointed. If you're a fan of Thornton than maybe the film is worth rental but I think renting the original would be a better choice. Rating 5/10

The original "Bad News Bears" was a hit because it was funny and even a bit shocking for it's time. Unfortunately this remake is not funny or original and only shocking in how bad it is. The original movie had enough character development that you could relate to each of the kids and the adults. This remake does not take the time for character development and instead seems to rely on the viewers knowledge of the previous movie. The kids characters made the first movie interesting but this one chooses to ignore that fact and tries to focus on Buttermaker (Thornton). Tanner Boyle, Lupus, and Engelberg were main characters originally but are uninteresting and one dimensional in this version. While I'm sure these kids are fine actors they aren't given much of a chance to act in this film. There is no originality in this new version. I assume a couple of very small changes, such as changing the team sponsor, were thrown in so the writers, producers and directors could claim they had not just blatantly ripped off the old movie. Billy Bob Thornton turns in the same old performance we have seen from him before. When he is given a part that challenges him, Billy Bob seems to rise to the occasion. It is clear this part does not challenge him and his acting can only be described as "the usual." Jeffrey Davies plays Kelly Leak and Sammi Kane Kraft is Amanda Whurlitzer. Their characters are downplayed to the point that it would be easy to forget they were even in the movie. Again, character development is non-existent and the two actors are not given anything to work with. If you have not seen the original movie then this might not be a complete waste of your time. It is such a copy of the original movie, although not a good copy, that you might find some humor. Most, if not all, of the politically incorrect humor from the first version has been eliminated in an apparent effort to not offend. In short, go and rent the 1976 version and enjoy the original for what it is. If you are a die hard Billy Bob Thornton fan and absolutely must see this film then wait for it on DVD and save yourself the trip to a theater.

I'm a fan of Billy Bob - but he ain't no Walter Matthau. Every character is just plain flat - with nothing to act off of. You don't really care about anyone in the movie. Linklater is a much better director and you are better off watching any other movie that either he or Billy Bob has made. A waste of money all around in my opinion. Just go and watch the original - you won't regret it. (They won't let me make my comment unless I have 10 lines of text - but I have nothing else to say. Guess I'll just have to keep typing until they let this go through. Opps not enough yet - how about this time. Still not enough - I think this will make it)

Unskilled, belligerent group of young boys on a losing Little League baseball team get an alcoholic coach who eventually cleans up their act--and his own. Any film-buff well acquainted with the 1976 Michael Ritchie film "The Bad News Bears" will watch this remake in a perpetual state of deprivation. For every new ingredient added (a kid in a wheelchair, Hooters waitresses on the sidelines, a skateband interlude), there's a classic sequence dropped, funny lines omitted, a bracing sense of importance missing, and uncharismatic, non-plussed child actors who walk through their roles colorlessly. Of course, Billy Bob Thornton is a terrific substitute for Walter Matthau, but Matthau didn't carry the original film all by himself, and Thornton isn't fully in-character anyway (he's just breezing through). The whole early morning feel of Southern California Little League is missing, and the urgency of the original is gone, too (those kids had something riding on these games). Director Richard Linklater obviously was fond of the 1976 version, but he knows the notes without hearing the music; he supplies updated comedic touches without seeing the relevancy, and his tone and narrative are doggedly straightforward (except for the strange opening sequence, which immediately gets the picture off on the wrong foot). A sad botch. *1/2 from ****

This "Bad News Bears" is a remake of the 1976 classic of a bunch a juvenile kids that lack basic motor skills that have a once pro-ball player turned loser drunk as a coach named Morris Buttermaker. The kids are stubborn and don't listen to Buttermaker and threaten to disband the team until Buttermaker acquires the help of his fast-ball throwing daughter Amanda Whurlitzer, and biker bad-boy Kelly Leak. Then the team bands together to reach championship caliber. Billy-Bob Thorton plays Buttermaker from the original movie who was played by Walter Mathau. He plays the role perfectly and provides almost all of the laughs in the movie. The other laughs are provided by Mike Engelberg and Tanner Boyle. All these two do is bicker and call each other vulgar names. Engelberg is always jumping on people for calling him fat. Boyle will never miss an opportunity to throw his glove at someone, or start a fight with a fellow teammate. Bad News Bears is one of the few remakes in Hollywood that manages to live up to the original. Sure it might not have the magic the 1976 one did but it is really close. Also, some of the jokes are re-used in the 2005 version but it's nice seeing it delivered by a new actor or actress. Also, the new jokes more than make up for the twice used jokes. In the end, if you were a fan of the original, or are a newcomer than have no fears this new updated version will have you laughing all the way out of the theater to your car and on the way home.

A former major league baseball player agrees to coach baseball for a team of 12-year olds. I think this is a setup. More on that later. I wouldn't take young kids to see this movie due to all the language, sexual innuendo, and just plain crass behavior by the kids as well as adults (mostly Billy Bob). Go buy the DVD of the original, which is far better. However, I will say, as the movie progressed, the language and rude, crude, and crass behavior, for the most part, disappeared. Why they didn't start that way is a mystery second only to the Pyramids. Maybe no one wanted to upset Billy Bob's record of playing bad characters like in Bad Santa. There is one thing I will say in defense of Billy Bob's character (Morris Buttermaker) and that the character was always level-headed and never intense and never out of control. I had to admire that. I mean kids can get on nerves at times. Yes, there were a few laughs in this, but not really out loud guffaws. I feel this is a set-up because of some issues were not resolved and we should see Bad New Bears 2 fairly soon before the kids outgrow their sneakers. Buttermaker's relationship with his ex-wife, who was supposed to attend the championship game, was a no show; his own life was a shambles before and while coaching the team wasn't entirely resolved although he did learn a lot from the kids; and his relationship with the lawyer (Hardin) who talked him into the coaching gig and who had the hots for him as well was never really defined. Well, maybe these things don't have to be resolved, but just watch. Oh, yeah, there is one more issue that needs resolution, but I cannot make it known here. In the end, Buttermaker lets the kids be kids and allows the chips to fall where they would. And, that part was very good and entertaining. Before that it was all about winning. With so many and I mean many, many remakes out there I think the people doing these remakes have some kind of responsibility to make the new movie conform to the original and if not, then title it something else. But don't take us into the bathroom to see it and pretend it is like the original when the remake is nothing like it in tone and uses language and behavior that the original would never have attempted.

I think everyone who has seen this movie would agree with me, Billy Bob was the only good aspect to this film. The kids were terrible at acting, they made it seem like they were reading off a teleprompter the whole time. There were very few funny lines, and the kids seemed like nothing but potty mouth little brats. The original is way better, the performance I saw by Walter Matthau in the original got me very excited because Billy Bob always plays a good drunk, but in this film Billy Bob was just too nice most of the time, so his character was a little too dull. If you enjoy baseball films then you might enjoy this, but I doubt even the biggest Billy Bob fan would give this 2 thumbs up...

Along with others who were born in the late Sixties, I felt that seeing the new *Bad News Bears* was somehow mandatory, if only to indulge in the guilty pleasure of nostalgia. We all knew it would suck, didn't we? -- but we had to see it anyway. Let it be said at once that Billy Bob Thornton as Coach Buttermaker is quite a come-down from the immortal Walter Matthau in the same role. Since the script of this new version is quite identical to the original, much of the degradation displayed here must be put at the feet of Thornton, a notorious ad-libber. None of us, young or old, need to be subjected to exclamations such as "You guys look like the last s--t I took." Or to hear copious references to Greg Kinnear's family jewels. But whether through the script or through Thornton's egregious improvising, director Richard Linklater reveals a complete lack of control. Evidently, the best that he feels he can do with this material is to allow it to subside deeper into crassness than the original. The whole enterprise becomes a dreary exercise in upping the ante: Matthau's Buttermaker was a pool cleaner; Thornton's Buttermaker is a rat-exterminator . . . in the '76 version, the Bears are sponsored by Chico's Bail Bonds; in the 2005 version, they're sponsored by a strip-club. Get the idea? What had been a gritty, rather incisive look at everyday Americana has become merely an exercise in crudity. This degeneration of standards can legitimately be argued away as the eternal complaint of the old, but the feeling persists that the original *Bad News Bears* was still made for KIDS, despite the more realistic dialog, situations, and characters. (And Matthau was never a scene-stealer; Tatum O'Neal shone just as brightly as he did. And rightly so.) The Little Leaguers in this film are sadly subordinate to the leering Coach -- guess who the intended audience is? (Hint: not kids.) By the way -- speaking of come-downs -- the iconic role of bad-boy Kelly Leak as portrayed by the super-iconic Jackie Earl Haley has been utterly neutered, here. The new Kelly is played by some incipient Calvin Klein model pretending to be a skate-punk. Pee-yew, man. Hey Jackie Earl, wherever you are: your status as the preeminent prepubescent bad-ass is, like, totally safe. 1 star out of 10.