The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training

Manufactured comedy of a slick order, depending aImost entirely for its effects on the sight and sound of a bunch of kids behaving as if they were small adults. It's a formula that worked for Our Gang Comedy for many years, and works again here with a bright screenplay by Paul Brickman, based on Bill Lancaster's original characters, and direction of intelligent lightness by Michael Presman. Read full review

While it's fitfully, harmlessly diverting, Breaking Training never overcomes the handicaps that derive from its fundamentally derivative character. [04 Aug 1977, p.B11]

When the boys who play the Bears are on screen, which is often, their natural high spirits and spontaneity do much to enliven the tired script and soft direction. Kids will still find watching them vacation-time fun. But in the end, the Bad News Bears without Matthau, O'Neal and Ritchie is like the Mets without Tom Seaver - deep in the doldrums. [08 Aug 1977, p.77]

The original The Bad News Bears was a home run, but the sequels are little more than weak trips back to the mound. Read full review

Bad news indeed. A quite ghastly sequel to The Bad News Bears in which the subject's incipient sentimentality has been left to run riot, with all charm, humour and believability lost in the process. Read full review