Monday, April 10, 2006

Bad News Bears

2005
Paramount Pictures
Director: Richard Linklater
Length: 113 min.
Country: USA
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 1 April, 2006

Essentially a companion piece to Linklater's own School of Rock, Bad News Bears remakes the well-known kiddie baseball movie of the same name with a fair amount of success. The jokes are piled on thick and fast and with a slant towards poop jokes, but truly funny lines find their way into the proceedings surprisingly often (the "German chick" line nearly had me on the floor). Thornton ambles through the role, seemingly enjoying himself and delivering the endless onslaught of jokes in a casual and naturalistic manner. The Bears are played by child actors with very little acting experience - some have not been in a movie before or since - and it shows. But they do decent enough work for the movie, and indeed it helps in giving a rather genuine feeling of outsidership and uneasiness to their characters. The movie isn't infused with much flair or excitement and the story is nothing new, but it's competently made and moves along at a brisk pace while thankfully avoiding MTV-style editing. Bad News Bears certainly isn't an award winner, but you can find many worse ways to spend two hours on a rainy day.

1 Comments:

Blogger Kyle Smith said...

Duly noted and corrected. Cheers!

11 April, 2006 12:45  

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