There are many lingerings over communal feelings other directors might pass through more quickly to get to the next giggle or guffaw more efficiently. full review

Billy Bob Thornton is the best weapon against cute that a kid baseball movie ever had.

More irksome is the ordained focus on plot undulation and simplistic motivation, as if nobody remembered that the first film was a social satire. full review

At least Linklater isn't just picking the bones of his forebears; he honors them as they deserve. full review

Fortunately, in the process of pursuing a box office winner, Linklater has crafted an entertaining motion picture. full review

But you don't watch Bad News Bears for the action out on the diamond. You hang out with that hangdog coach so you can catch every slurry, sour-mouthed retort coming out of his mouth. Now that's color commentary. full review

The movie is fun, though not great, and Billy Bob rules. full review

The material is so solid and Thornton so tailor-made that the movie almost gets by. full review

Perhaps someday French auteurists will be able to figure out how Bad News Bears fits into the cinematic oeuvre of Richard Linklater. full review

It isn't funny; it isn't sweet, and it has none of the innocence of the original. full review

Bad News Bears pitches more than punchlines. The film has a moral, even if it doesn't explore the deepest themes. full review

The kids in this knowing, tirelessly belligerent retread are as coarse and obnoxious as they ever were, maybe more so. And therein lies the problem. full review

Kids will be kids, and they are to be given leeway. But the film's adults, who end up only slightly redeemed at film's end, are not winners. full review

Bad News Bears isn't Linklater's or Thornton's greatest work, but it's funny from beginning to end and properly improper at every turn. This is religiously irreverent stuff. Pray for more.

Even if we've seen it a million times, there's still fun to be had watching zeroes become heroes. full review

Like its predecessor, Bears can be funny in a snide sort of way, but it doesn't have much kick. full review

Thornton and his directors have yet to master the subtlety between an endearing drunk and a sadist. full review

A cynical money grab made to capitalize on as well as cannibalize an old title that should be spinning in its grave. full review

A good movie, not the disgraceful, witlessly modernized rip-off we have grown to expect from remakes. full review

Stranded between pushing the scatological envelope and caving in to the formulas the 1976 movie established, and until the well-nigh foolproof ending, it comes up gasping for air. full review