The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.
This month’s Genre has been chosen by Robb of Red Bezzle and it is Remade Movies.
Love or hate, compare and contrast, and dare to say they’re better. It could be a relocated remake a la The Magnificent Seven, an Animation to Live Action remake similar to The Jungle Book or straight forward reimagining such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Please get me your submissions by the 25th of September by sending them to remaderobb@movierob.net
Try to think out of the box! Great choice Robb!
Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Re-Made Movies.…
“Baseball’s hard, guys. I mean, it really is. You can love it but, believe me, it don’t always love you back. It’s kind of like dating a German chick, you know? ” – Morris Buttermaker
Number of Times Seen – 2 (Jan 2006 and 11 Sep 2017)
Brief Synopsis – A former Baseball player who now works as an exterminator must try to help a team of little league baseball players filled with young misfits.
My Take on it –I am a pretty big fan of the original film from the 70’s that this story is based on and when I heard that they were remaking it for the 21st Century viewer, I was a bit shocked because being a film fan who usually dislikes remakes, I couldn’t really think of a situation where there was a need for this idea to be remade.
After having watched it again, I now know for a fact that was little need to remake this premise.
Billy Bob Thorton is not able to portray the main character any better than Walther Matthau was able to 40 years earlier despite a few humorous lines.
The role perfected by Matthau didn’t need improvement at all.
The kids that make up the team are all carbon copies of the original actors with minor updates for the modern PC world.
This too, doesn’t add to the enjoyment of the film and in some ways even detracts from it.
All in all, this is something that should have been left alone.
If you want to see this idea done properly, watched the original and stay away from this remake.
Bottom Line – The original film was so iconic for me and was such an inspirational film that it’s extremely hard to think that a remake would be able to take the premise to a higher level. Thornton is a bit humorous in the lead role, but he is nothing like the kind of character that Walter Matthau gave us in the original. The kids are all pretty much the same as the original with obligatory updates of the 21st century. Doesn’t really add anything to the premise and it would be better to stick with the original.
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Despite the remake having a higher MPAA rating than the original (PG-13 verses PG), the ratings board would not allow the remake to feature Coach Morris Buttermaker drinking alcoholic beer in the dugout as he had in the original. Strangely enough the board was fine with him spiking his non-alcoholic beer with hard liquor. (From IMDB)
Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not as inspirational as the original was. Thornton is no Matthau and it shows.
Rating – BAFTA Worthy
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MovieRob 
Agree with you. Again, another senseless, unneeded, inferior remake. The original movie was the best by a mile. As Hollywood does, if it makes money – keep making more of them until it doesn’t. The BEARS franchise kinda went downhill after the original in terms of quality – going to Japan didn’t help. So I guess they thought they could roll the dice backwards and start all over. Bad move. Bit of trivia for those who didn’t know – but the original movie was written by Bill Lancaster – so of Burt.
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That should be SON of Burt, not so.
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BL did a much better job than the writer of this remake 🙂
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The remake was credited to Glenn Ficara and John Requa (who’ve actually written some pretty good movies) and was directed by Richard Linklatter (Boyhood) – so it had a pretty good pedigree, but we are in agreement that the remake just didn’t work. Bill Lancaster actually shares the screenplay credit on the remake – because it was based on his original script. He actually died, at age 49, in 1997 – 8 years before the remake was done. Bill had gotten credit earlier on both sequels (Breaking Training and Go To Japan) as well as the short lived 1979/80 TV series based on his movie.
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