How sad is this?

Crappy film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Quite often, the quality of a movie depends heavily on the expectations of the audience going into see it. In the case of the 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears, expectations were most likely lower than the average baseball film. Though it is helmed by the enormously talented and creative Richard Linklater, little of his talent is utilized in this otherwise bland and, at times, disjointed tale of a group of ragtag Little League rejects who form together to create an unlikely winning combination.Billy Bob Thornton as the alcoholic coach Morris Buttermaker is at times likable and sympathetic while at others he is a complete and utter wretched person. Though this would work in some scripts, here it feels cheap and rings false, with Buttermaker and most of the rest of the cast being used by the plot as puppets. Hardly any of these characters' actions feel genuine or reasonable; rather they seem to be acting in a movie.The best part of the film, the championship game which takes up the last twenty minutes or so, reveals some nice touches but still is not quite capable of capturing the right balance between salty adolescence and sympathetic losers. Greg Kinnear's antagonist also seems to fall into the all-too big category of bad guys being bad simply for the sake of being the protagonist's obstruction. Whether this is a better film than the original 1976 must be decided by the audience, but it certainly fails to be any more surprising or memorable.

First let me say I was raised on the original BNB series and have tracked them all down on DVDs to share with my kids. I'm also a huge fan of Thornton's however, was he not feeling well during this shoot? His acting is sub-par. The casting directors also could have spent a little more time finding kids who could actually act to play the roles of Kelly and Amanda. The movie went down hill with their appearances in the film. This is also one of those stories that other than the clothes, needed no modernizations, IE: computers, Hooters Girls, Music, etc. Buttermaker should have remained a pool man and it would have made him a lot more interesting character than an exterminator.I admit, they ALL had a tough act to follow, Tatum O'Neil (Amanda Whurlitzer), Walter Matthau (Morris Buttermaker), Jackie Earle Haley (Kelly Leak)and who could forget, Chris Barnes as Tanner Boyle! Everyone I've talked to who has seen both the original and the remake agree that the 1976 version was lacking nothing and was a much more enjoyable film to watch.

make for great baseball comedies. Well, sort of. This movie was funny, but not as good as the original. Coach Buttermaker kills rats by morning and coaches misfit baseballers by afternoon. He loves to swear and drink around the kids while half-a**ing it as their coach. Roy Bullock gets under his skin and decides he wants his team to be good to beat Bullock's team. He recruits his daughter he never sees to be the pitcher and gets the bad boy to join the team who is a good athlete.The Bears fortunes change and they start winning. The kids go from whining about losing to gloating and just being very unsportsmanlike. For some reason during the last game, Buttermaker decides winning isn't the most important thing but fun is and lets all the kids play, including the one in a wheel chair. I don't think that went along with his character.FINAL VERDICT: It's funny in a sick sort of way. If you like raunchy humor, you will like this.

There was no way that this film would be as good as the classic from 1976, no way. That being said, I had rather low expectations. I mean, were they just going to remake the original but with different actors? Would they do an original take on the story? Well, they kind of stay loyal to the original with a few variations. Billy Bob Thornton is no Walter Matthau, but he gives a good effort and has some great lines. The real weakness with film is in the supporting cast, which is vastly inferior to the original. Greg Kinnear pales in comparison to Vic Morrow and is rather marginalized compared to the original. However, the real problem with this film involves the kids. Tatum O'Neil and the kids that starred in the original were very accomplished and so much more entertaining. The Bears in this film are just weak. None are very accomplished as actors and it shows, big time. Not one gives a really decent performance. Added to this is the poor edit job. I mean, we see the Bears lose every game, then, they win one game and in the next scene, a character says we are one game away from the Championship. What!? How is that possible? I guess the more I talk about this movie, the more I realize that it is vastly inferior to the original, despite the Thornton performance.