The Bad News Bears Go to Japan

The franchise is getting very old and tiring here and the once funny antics of those rambunctious little leaguers on the Bears baseball team aren't even the least bit funny anymore. Many of the kids from the first two films chose not to appear in this one (that may be one of the problems) and Tony Curtis seems lost in his role as the team's new coach, a shifty con man who attempts to make some big money by sending the Bears off to Japan for a highly publicized exhibition game against Japan's best little league baseball team. Paramount wisely chose to end the series after this one.

Well, I explained before my love of the first Bad News Bears and how I wanted to see the sequels thinking maybe they were not given a fair chance. But I was so sad to see that there was no Buttermaker in either films since technically he made the story what it was and the second one took on more to the team's story, which wasn't so bad, but it wasn't needed. The Bears now are more annoying and it wasn't appreciated what the writers did to the story or the characters, because the story became desperate.

The Bears apparently didn't win any trip to Japan despite that's what they said in the second sequel that they'd win a trip to Japan if they won the game like they did in the astrodome, but Japan is upset with the fact that no teams have come to America or they decline because Japan has beaten the American teams 9 to 11 games. The Bears get a sponsor who takes them to Japan anyways to help them win a game against the Japenese team, but apparently that's nothing written in the script about the Bears being talented in Baseball.

The third installment of The Bad News Bears is pretty bad and I was disappointed with how the sequels were made, I mean, were they absolutely necessary? I don't think so, I think honestly the die hard fans of the first Bad News Bears would agree that this was insulting to the original story, and I'm sorry that I rented the sequels, maybe I could say it was an accident and I was out of it when I picked them out.

2/10

It had to happen. After the success of "The Bad News Bears" and "Breaking Training" the film execs at Paramount knew they had a goldmine on their hands and couldn't leave well enough alone. They started on the right track by enlisting Bill Lancaster to write the script. He also authored the original. Sadly that is where the similarities end.

"The Bad News Bears Go To Japan" is one of the worst films of the 70's. It's so bad the many of the kids from the first two don't even appear in this one. The ones that do are given little to do save for team leader Kelly Leak who gets to romance a young japanese girl. The love story is laughably bad.

The coach this time around is Tony Curtis playing a con man looking for his next score. Curtis looks as if he is in a trance as he sleepwalks thru the film.

And the worst part? There is very little baseball in a movie about little leaguers!!! We get more scenes of sumo wrestling. The one baseball game we DO get is badly directed and comes so late in the film you may have either fallen asleep or turned it off.

And why send the kids all the way to Japan? A bit far fetched don't you think? Apparently the first film was a smash hit in Japan, playing in one theater for over a year. That says it all. The filmmakers knew that no matter how badly it bombed here (and it did) that they would have a hit in Japan (and it was). Too bad they didn't care that the product they were presenting was no better than a student film on a tiny budget. No. Take that back. A student film on a tiny budget would have to be ten times better than this pathetic "comedy."

Sleazy hustler/promoter Tony Curtis (looking old and tired here) talks our pint-sized heroes into going to Japan to play an international little league game with the best team in the Orient. Sleep-inducing third installment lacks the wit and charm of the original and even lacks the minimum credibility that the first sequel had. Jackie Earle Haley and the rest of the ballplayers seem like little more than spoiled adolescent performers that are just going through the motions. Curtis' one-liners and used car dealer-styled part wears thin before we are even settled in. More proof that sequels rarely work, particularly in the 1970s. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

This--dare I call it--film is, IMHO, one of the worst productions ever recorded onto celluloid and released by a studio. Our daughter loved the original BNB, and seeing original director Michael Ritchie as this installment's Producer gave us some reason to hope, but 3 minutes of this extreme dog-of-a-movie was enough to dispel all of THAT! It's hard to believe this was made only two years after the original came out. From Tony Curtis' boozy, utterly amoral character (was this an acting job?), to the very incoherent script and equally helpless direction, this is a testament, I can only imagine, to the power of greed. Greed by a studio and production company that had had a hit with the first BNB movie and was determined to milk it for all it was worth--regardless of the #&%@! they had to serve up! Thanks folks! Save yourself the considerable bother and DO NOT watch this movie!