Bad News

Last weekend, I rented the remake of the Bad News Bears. Although there was such a high possibility of suckitude (i.e., the original still holds up really well and hasn't aged poorly, so there's no compelling reason to remake it; plus, previews made it look like a cliche Hollywood, too-many-hands-in-production-with-a-bland-outcome movie), I rented it anyway because Richard Linklater directed it. Having loved much of his past work (specifically Slacker and Dazed and Confused) and at least liking his other films I'd seen, I assumed he would make a movie that was at least entertaining despite being a kids movie, much like he did with School of Rock.
I was wrong. It was horrible. The story wasn't updated in any interesting way, Marcia Gay Harden's talent was wasted on a secondary, uninteresting role, Billy Bob Thornton phoned in a performance of a guy phoning in his job, and none of the kids were interesting (before I'm accused of simply not liking kids, which is true, I'd like to state for the record that I think that Linklater got terrific performances out of several of the kids in School of Rock, and I wasn't annoyed by any of them). Worst of all, the movie was sooooooooooooo much more politically correct than the original--odd for a movie that is supposed to revel in its unpolitically correct theme. Lame.