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Bad News Bears Movie Review

Bad News Bears is a 2005 sports comedy film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Billy Bob Thornton. It’s an entirely unnecessary sequel.

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“My dad says the only people who put ketchup

on hot dogs are mental patients, and Texans“

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It follows this baseball kid team consisting of foul-mouthed children and a very cranky, cynical coach. For some unbeknownst reason to me, Richard Linklater set out to adapt this story previously done in 1976. Maybe he felt nostalgia for it, I don’t know. Whatever the reasoning, the fact remains that nobody needed this remake.

It’s a big problem when you remake something and do it in the exact same way. Surely, this is not the freaking ‘Lion King’, but it’s still way too faithful to the source material to the point of becoming lazy and uninspired. It has its rustic, old-fashioned charms that way, but still it lacks the great actors of the original.

However, Billy Bob Thornton is undeniably excellent as Morris Buttermaker. He’s almost as good as Walter Matthau was before him. A lot of his lines are very amusing and memorable. He thus steals the show from everyone else and is the highlight of the movie.

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Bad News Bears is also well shot, well made and well scored, but again it just repeats its classic musical score idea from the original. I just wanted something new, anything really out of it. What we got isn’t an insult to the fans of the original, but I am certainly not in that camp as I find the first one overrated, so of course I did not love this movie either. It’s a rare misfire from Linklater.

Richard Linklater’s Bad News Bears remake is a rare misfire for the director. Yes, Billy Bob Thornton is excellent in the main role and the movie has its fun scenes, but most of it is just way too much of a rehash of the original with nothing new to offer whatsoever. It was a totally unnecessary remake.

My Rating – 2.5

You can get Bad News Bears on Amazon.