The Bad News Bears Review
by [email protected] (johnny_betts AT hotmail DOT com)July 21st, 2005
Check out the Movie Mark for more reviews (with captioned pictures!) and movie entertainment:
http://www.themoviemark.com
Bad News Bears
http://www.themoviemark.com/moviereviews/badnewsbears.asp
PLOT
Morris Buttermaker (Thornton) is a former Major League Baseball player (he pitched 2/3rds of an inning and had a career ERA of 36.00) who drinks heavily and has a goofy looking soul patch. Marcia Gay Harden is a lawyer who orchestrated some sort of lawsuit to force the town little league to allow a team of inept brats to play. She bribes Buttermaker to coach, and it becomes his job to overcome the clichéd, remade odds and try to lead these foul-mouthed runts to the championship. A bunch of annoying, cussing kids ensues.
JOHNNY'S TAKE
I think I'm going to go shopping for a file cabinet this weekend. I've been meaning to get my life more organized, and I figured it'd be a good idea to start filing things. I'll pick up several folders as well, and I'll be sure to label one "Unnecessary Wastes of my Time." Under "U" of course. And while I'm at it, I think I'll go ahead and make "Remake of The Bad News Bears" the first entry I file.
I actually expected to be fairly entertained by this movie, so I was quite shocked by how pedestrian it is. Billy Bob Thornton as an alcoholic Little League baseball coach? Come on, that's gotta be pretty funny, right? Well, you'd think. But strangely enough, Thornton is quite subdued, and apparently the writers thought it'd be absolutely hilarious if they made the kids raunchier than Thornton. Perhaps the writers could use a course on how to more effectively think things through.
I never dismiss a movie immediately just because it's a remake. I always give it a chance to stand on its own merits. Unfortunately, this is a remake that seems content with touching all the main plot points from the original, and then just making the kids cuss more. Sorry, but I fail to see the humor in 11 year olds running around saying God-d**n and the like. Har har har, yeah, there's some crisp screenwriting there. If I see an 11 or 12 year old using that kind of language in real life I can't help but think it's a punk who hasn't been taken to the woodshed enough. I certainly don't cheer them on. Same thing with the kids in this movie.
I'm all for a good underdog story, but this is one of the least inspiring underdog movies I've ever seen. I was actually rooting against the Bears. Talk about the biggest collection of annoying kid actors I've seen in a long time, especially Tanner (Timmy Deters). It's bad enough that his stupid girly hair makes him look like a young Natalie Maines, but his taste for the profane and penchant for getting into fights indicate to me that he's just going to be another drain on taxpayer money when he's sitting in a jail cell in a few years. He's a prime example of why you shouldn't spare the rod.
The movie also tries way too hard to attempt to be controversial without being all that offensive. For example, the uniforms are sponsored by Bo Beeps strip club. This doesn't offend me so much as it insults my intellect due to the fact that it's just not very funny. "Haha, look at how irreverent we are! This is edgy stuff! We have now thusly taken the kids to dine at Hooters! Bow at our over-the-top vulgarity!" Um, I'm not too impressed. "Well you should be! Fine, we will henceforth throw in another instance of a child using a curse word! That shall surely induce fits of laughter!" Not really.
"Oh, well, then we shall have Billy Bob say such taboo things as, 'This is not a democracy! It's a dictatorship, and I'm Hitler!" Woo, yeah, that's really crossing the line there. Nice try. Maybe if you have a sequel you can replace "Hitler" with "Stalin" or "Hussein" and REALLY cross the line. Good job, guys, you've got some ready-made quotes just sitting in the queue.
Give me a break. Billy Bob does have his moments, and he's obviously the funniest thing the movie has going for it, but at times the movie seems like an awkward attempt at letting him just monologue in an effort to come up with a memorable one-liner. After each failed attempt he's allowed to keep going, as if we're being treated to a deleted rehearsal scene or something. "The audience didn't laugh? OK, let's try another..."
Oh, and let me get back to the kids for a second - for the most part they're all really bad actors. Especially Sammi Kraft and Jeff Davies. I know they didn't have previous acting experience, but sheesh, it sticks out like Paris Hilton at a virgin convention. I started to feel embarrassed watching Ms. Kraft trying to spit out a simple line like, "You. are. a. lazy. drunk." My sister thought she recognized the girl and asked me, "Where else have I seen her?" I responded with, "Not acting school."
And poor Jeff Davies - sure, he can hit a baseball, but he looks like Corey Feldman going through an awkward stage of puberty, and his line delivery is just as unemotional as Ms. Kraft's. I just didn't buy him as the bad boy that Jackie Earle Haley portrayed so well in the original. It's not often that I'm actually shocked by truly bad acting in a big screen release, so congrats, Bad News Bears! You've got that going for you!
After about 35 minutes, when I realized this just wasn't going to be a very funny movie, I decided to start counting how many times we were expected to laugh at dropped fly balls, booted grounders, turd jokes, and the kids insulting each other and getting into fights. After I had exhausted all 10 fingers within the course of about 5 minutes I decided to just give up, lean back in my seat, and ride it out. T'wasn't easy, especially since this inexplicably lasts almost two hours, but I survived.
Whenever Billy Bob announces who the Bears will be playing next he asks them what that means for the opposing team. The players yell out, "Bad news!" How ironic that the same mantra can be applied to what you can expect if you fork out your hard-earned dough to see this on the big screen.
THE GIST
The writers of Bad Santa thought it'd be a good idea to remake The Bad News Bears and mix things up a bit by having the young kids cuss more than in the original. If that sounds like you're idea of a good way to spend $8+ a pop, then hey, it's your money and there's nothing I can do about it. But please leave the kids at home. You've been warned.
Rating: 2 (out of 5)
Johnny Betts
The Movie Mark
http://www.themoviemark.com
More on 'The Bad News Bears'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
