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'Bad News Bears': Major-league disappointment

It's hard to figure why people would remake one of the most influential movies of the past 30 years and think audiences would find it fresh and astonishing. The 1976 original "The Bad News Bears" spawned countless underdog sports movies, from "The Mighty Ducks" to "Kicking & Screaming," making the film shorthand for a genre. Since its release, we have been fatigued by a million copycats and knockoffs. Now we get a flatout remake of the source just in time for nothing in particular.

Paramount Pictures 'Bad News Bears' 2 out of 5 stars The verdict: A shoddy and superfluous copy Director: Richard Linklater Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Timmy Deters, Sammi Kane Kraft Run time: 111 minutes Release date: July 22, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for rude behavior, language throughout, some sexuality and thematic elements. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Bad News Bears"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

"Bad News Bears" is a glaring mediocrity by a great filmmaker. Why Richard Linklater elected this project is easy to suppose. After the huge hired-hand success of "School of Rock" — which ironically is a tale of can-do triumph, a la "Bears," and a blast — the director got a taste of easy money. He can make anonymous Hollywood pap that affords him the chance to do personal, innovative projects such as "Tape," "Waking Life," "Before Sunset" and the upcoming "Scanner Darkly." It's a tried-and-true equation and nothing to blush about. By no means has Linklater sold his soul, which is firmly lodged in indie art. He has simply directed a pointless retread that misses almost everything that made Michael Ritchie's version a charming original.

Screenwriters Glenn Ficarra and John Requa — who, from the sound of their writing (they also wrote the explosively unfunny "Bad Santa") might actually be 13-year-old boys — have spiced up Bill Lancaster's 1976 script with new plot episodes and politically correct updates. For instance, teammate Hooper is now a paraplegic in a wheelchair, the beer Coach Buttermaker shares with the kids is nonalcoholic and Tanner's racial epithets are long gone.

Remove the new scenes, which add zip and mostly feature Marcia Gay Harden as a high-strung mother, and Linklater's "Bears" is a scene-for-scene reshoot about a team of talentless young ball players who are whipped into shape by a reluctant, booze-swilling coach.

But it feels nothing like its source. Visually, it wears a generic, stultifying sitcom sheen that guarantees we'll never be seduced into its plastic world. While many of the child actors physically resemble the original actors, particularly scrappy Tanner and chubby Engelberg (who is now on the Atkins Diet — sigh), they possess none of their predecessor's broken-in charm and believability.

The new kids look and act like performers. Comprising a medley of Hollywood-minted stereotypes, their faces are shiny and their delivery is stilted and self-conscious. The performances by the team's secret weapons, tomboy pitcher Amanda and juvenile delinquent Kelly Leak, pale badly next to the famous portrayals of Amanda and Kelly by Tatum O'Neal and the freakish Jackie Earle Haley. (The reason? Linklater drafted nonactor athletes for the roles.)

The film's only wise casting is Billy Bob Thornton as Buttermaker, a role created and owned by Walter Matthau. Thornton is tailored to play Buttermaker, a blue-collar wastrel with a drinking problem, foul mouth and slob's coarseness. He's a hipper incarnation, with tattooed arms and an appetite for buxom strippers.

Yet Thornton is a far cry from the sad-sack miserableness Matthau naturally exuded and, with a pneumatic blonde on his arm, it's hard to worry about the guy. Matthau was a tragic alcoholic past his prime; Thornton is an acerbic party dude who struts his debauchery. His juvenile antics do not charm.

While the writers retain the kids' bursts of profanity, which no longer shock, Linklater stays true to his modest visual palette, relying excessively on montages and stock shots. It smacks of quickie filmmaking.

You might get away with saying the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is not a remake of the similar 1971 movie, despite its numerous visual rip-offs, which are so blatant it baffles. But there's no debating that "Bad News Bears" is a remake of "The Bad News Bears."

The filmmakers might call it an "homage" if they'd like, even if that hints at a mere nod to the first movie. But to deny it's practically a shot-for-shot remake is a lie. From the lookalike kids to the heavy use of Bizet's theme from "Carmen" and so on, the film is a shoddy and superfluous copy. That's not only bad news, it's a bad idea.