Bad News Bears

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

New-era losers (the cast is a cheery scrum of relaxed kids, led by genuine whiz pitcher Sammi Kane Kraft in the role created by Tatum O'Neal) now include a rotten kid in a wheelchair.

Variety Brian Lowry

The new Bad News Bears has adopted a somewhat raunchier tone but delivers enough laughs to go the distance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Does nothing to justify its own existence other than be consistently funny from start to finish.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

There may be no other actor (Thornton)working today (or as frequently) who is this good each and every time out.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Filled with small, cute kids and large, goofy laughs and buoyed by fine supporting work from Greg Kinnear and Marcia Gay Harden, the director's latest effort won't rock your movie world, but the fact that he manages to keep the freak flag flying in the face of our culture of triumphalism is a thing of beauty.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A straightforward, surprisingly faithful and definitely loving adaptation of the original.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Matthau was merely worthless, while Thornton, God bless his soul, rises to the actual level of sociopathic. I love it when that happens.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

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

Slate David Edelstein

Wholly unnecessary but highly enjoyable.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The mischief Thornton does make adds up to wild, rowdy fun.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Linklater has crafted an entertaining motion picture.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The strong script (with updated flourishes by "Bad Santa" writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa) and some of the vibrant child characters pull it through, with the comically reptilian Thornton egging them on with one inappropriate shocker after another.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is like a merger of his ugly drunk in "Bad Santa" and his football coach in "Friday Night Lights," yet Thornton doesn't recycle from either movie; he modulates the manic anger of the Santa and the intensity of the coach and produces a morose loser who we like better than he likes himself.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The new Bad News Bears may not make you cheer, but it should provide laughs and a good time. Isn't that what some movies are all about?

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The coach is certainly an offensive goofball, and the Bears are certainly a pack of hard-to-handle whippersnappers. But the picture's point is that surfaces don't tell the whole story about people, about teams, or about anything.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Many moments of laugh-out-loud comedy. But somehow those moments never add up to a fully satisfying viewing experience.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Fortunately almost everyone acquits himself coolly and admirably; only costars Greg Kinnear and Marcia Gay Harden ham it up.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

While Linklater's version has its own unique pacing, mounting up more like a series of innings than a series of acts (even if you think you know how it ends, that bottom-of-the-ninth screwball still beans you silly), it lacks the screwball-to-the-noggin punch of the original.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The remake is 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.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Sure, it's a pleasure to watch Thornton stretch his legs in Matthau's role, but I miss Tatum O'Neal as his firebrand daughter.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Brad Wheeler

It falls short of the original but surpasses its sequels.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Linklater's Bears are even scrappier, fouler and worse-behaved than their 1976 counterparts.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Thornton swills the Matthau role with the unslakable thirst of W.C. Fields and idiosyncratic sexuality of Johnny Depp. So this is what Bad Santa does during the off-season.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

For all the updated riffs and personal noodling, it's best when it doesn't stray too far from the original material.

USA Today Mike Clark

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

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Linklater, whose intimate "Before Sunset" was an art-house wonder last year, proved he could make mainstream money with "School of Rock." With Bad News Bears, he proves he can waste it, too.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Hardly the kids'-sports movie we need, but maybe it's as much as we can handle.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's the screenwriting equivalent of those fat substitutes used by snack food manufacturers: the finished product looks all right but the taste is off, and the aftereffects are embarrassing and uncomfortable.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In a blind taste test, I couldn't possibly have identified this as a Linklater movie, and he's a filmmaker I generally like. If anything, Bad News Bears shows that Linklater can get in and out of a movie like a cat burglar, without leaving his fingerprints anywhere. OK, he's proven it. He need never do that again.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The most grievous flaw in Richard Linklater's remake of Michael Ritchie's 1976 misfit juvenile baseball comedy The Bad News Bears is that it over-relies on Thornton's willingness to play an irredeemable degenerate.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Merely a passably amusing excuse to pass a couple of hours in an air-conditioned theater.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

This is simply another in a long line of utterly unnecessary remakes that, having nothing new to say, clutch at crassness and dumbness.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Just isn't a very good movie. In fact it's kind of like living in the San Fernando Valley where it was filmed. It's big, kind of neat, has nice weather and has all the accouterments of a real city. But there's no "there" there.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The year's least necessary and most unimaginative remake slogs half-heartedly to its pre-destined conclusion without making a ripple.