Die Bären bleiben am Ball

This second installment in Paramount's "The Bad News Bears" film series is (as most sequels are) not quite as good as the original film but it's not entirely bad either. William Devane does a fairly good job in his role as the new coach of the Bears little league baseball team. He has his sights set on big things including giving the team a shot for the little league world series and a chance to play at the famed Houston Astrodome. However, what could've made this sequel better was if some of the talent that came together to make the first film so enjoyable could've returned. The series was never the same without Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal.

Probably like most kids my age at the time, I found this to be the *second* coolest movie of summer 1977 (gee, what do you suppose was the first). But with age comes awakening and through viewings in my later years the holes in this script broke out like jock itch. Although some of the gaps were plugged in the paperback, it still left a leaky script up there on the screen.

First bad play is the lack of explanation as to why the Bears, and not the league-champion Yankees, get to travel to Houston. Later, the kids are held on suspicion of grand theft auto for their van (which they earlier admitted to secretly "borrowing") but the issue is never resolved, so what's the point of making the vehicle hot in the first place? Of course, the hardest pitch to hit is the idea that a Houston home crowd would unanimously root for a visiting team, regardless of some sappy news story of a kid back home with a broken leg. On that note, the photo given to Lupus of his heroic catch from the first film is said to have been taken by Ogilvie's dad. Yet the photo is nothing more than the actual shot itself from the first film. That would mean that Ogilvie's dad would have to have been standing right next to Lupus in the outfield when that catch was made. Okay, okay. This one *is* nitpicky but I hate when movies flub little details like this. Finally, it's established that the winner of the Houston game will advance to a game in Japan. Yet in the next film, BNB Go to Japan (1978), no mention is made, even by the Bears themselves, of the Houston victory and they travel to the land of the rising sun for other reasons, which they address on a talk show hosted by Regis. Even back *then* the man was everywhere.

Trivia: In Paul Brickman's paperback adaptation of his screenplay, Ronzoni spins a tale of scoring with a babysitter. This monologue would later resurface verbatim years later in Brickman's script for Risky Business (1983), in which Tom Cruise, in an early scene, brags to his buddies about scoring with a babysitter.

As a 12 year old I probably would've given this movie a 10. Along with Star Wars it was my favorite movie for the summer of 77 and probably for a few more years of my youth. Honestly, it is still incredibly nostalgic to me -I'd say more so than any other movie I watched during that time period of my life. Which is why it gets an 8. I agree with the other posts here especially Damonfordham -This movie is for 12-13 year olds (or kids around that age) not adults. If I saw this today for the first time I would think it was god awful. I think you need the combination of youth, innocence, immaturity and to have been growing up in the 70's to really be effected by this film. There was a time and place for this in my life -if I would've have seen it any later I wouldn't have the memory of it I do today. I remember seeing it twice that summer and the theme song (Our time is now (Looking Good) by James Rolleston) staying with me long after. That song still takes me back. Look, movies have changed tremendously, most kids today might not even like this movie and adults forget it -it's not meant for you. Yes it's cheesy- but if you grew up in the 70's and were 12 or so when you saw this then you get it.

I have often sang that song throughout my life when life is looking good- here are the lyrics: The road is open and we're rolling thru and life is looking good We got a dream that maybe could come true and life is looking good If we just stay loose now we'll come out alright There's something telling me our time is now It's just a whisper but I know somehow We've got to listen got to do it now Life is looking good for you and me The clouds have parted and the sun's come thru and life is looking good There's nothing that can beat all we can do and life is looking good If we hold together we're gonna be alright There's something telling me our time is now It's just a whisper but I know somehow We've got to listen got to do it now Life is looking good for you and me If we just stay loose now we're gonna be alright....

Folks, There is only one group of people who will truly enjoy and think this is a great film-the group who it was intended for: those of us who were in our pre-teens or early teens who saw this when it first came out in the Summer of 1977.

The tale is pretty much the kind of thing that every red-blooded American boy of that age would dream about. The little leaguers fire their tyrannical coach and "borrow" a van to play at a little league championship in Houston. To avoid spoiling it, I'll just say that this deals with their adventures along the way and the results. A "Huckleberry Finn" of the 1970s, to be generous.

The overprotective parents and PC squads of today would have heart attacks at the scenes of the kids' foul language, cigarette smoking, chasing a grown woman, committing grand theft auto, and swiping Playboy magazines. But most of us who saw it at the time knew that this was over -the top and didn't take it that seriously.

Yeah, an adult viewer would agree that the story, writing, and acting are atrocious. But this wasn't intended to be Shakespeare. See it with a 13 year old mind and trust me, you'll "get it." For those of us who saw this as 13 year olds in 1977, leave your brains at the door and enjoy the nostalgia and the theme song "Looking Good." To everyone else-you've been warned!

I first saw this movie back in the summer of '77, just before my 9th birthday, and enjoyed it so much that I joined a little league baseball team the following year. That's what this film did for my life.

While people have often criticized this sequel over the absents of both Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal from the original cast. I think the criticism would be an accurate and valid one if this sequel was trying to be something like, "Rocky II", for example. Where the sequel is just a slight variation on the original story, except that the hero (or heroes) win at the end of the movie, instead of lose. But that's NOT what this movie was trying to be.

Instead, "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" is a road picture at heart. About a group of preteen misfits from the suburbs of Los Angles, California who get swept away by their shared ambitions of playing in the Astrodome in Houston, TX for the National Championship of little league baseball.

Sort of like, "Bless the Beast and Children", meets, "Treasure Island" in the form of a sports movie. Without any pirates or buffalo's serving as metaphors for the doomed spirit of young boys.

But, what I think is a more accurate criticism of this sequel, is that despite the Bears being the West Coast champions at the beginning of the movie, they're apparently a really bad baseball team, who are in desperate need of a decent pitcher.

Twice we see the Bears play baseball prior to the championship game and twice it's like watching the 3-little stooges, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin all on the same baseball team together trying to hit and field a baseball.

That is, until Kelly's long separated father (William Devane) becomes the teams manager shortly after the Bears arrive in Houston. Then, he quickly converts them from a comically bad team into a championship team, after just a few days of practice.

Also, there's the unnecessary family drama conflict at the end of the film between Kelly Leak and his father/team manager which suddenly erupts out of nowhere, for no reason, and feels very forced and too tact on for the audience to empathize with Kelly's sudden outburst of pent-up emotional rage of being abandoned by his father (that everyone likes by now) when he was a very young child.

Then later, in this 70's "Feel Good Summer Sports Movie" - which would eventually become a movie cliché by the mid-80's - all of that sudden serious drama between a divorced father and his abandoned son is all magically resolved by simply winning the big game at the end of the movie.

That's nice, and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside at the end too. If only real life was more like that.(sigh)

But, both of those justifiable criticisms of the movie are only a very slight departure from what this movie really excels at in a big way. Which is, creating a huge sense of joy and fun of watching a small band of preteen misfits in their collective pursuit of playing baseball on a national stage, inside the greatest sports stadium in the country and possibly bringing a National Championship back to California with them.

I was with the Bears the entire way through the movie, and I even lived in Texas at the time, and still do.

While I realize that this movie is definitely not for everyone. But, if you were a kid in the 70's, or just want to reconnect with your lost sense of youthful mischief when the world was still just one big adventure? Then this is a must see movie.