In this third film version of the Bad News Bears series, Tony Curtis plays a small time promotor/hustler who takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best little league baseball team which sparks off a series of adventures and mishaps the boys come into.

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jrs-8 from Chicago
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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."

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dkallem (dan@whomedia.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA
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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!

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tfrizzell from United States
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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).

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possumopossum from United States
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I got this as part of a three DVD set, the entire Bad News Bears series. (The set was a disappointment by the way. Yes, it was only $23, but there were no frills. It was in mono, no extras.) So, like I said, this movie was unbelievably bad. I put this in, dozed off for a few minutes, then woke up thinking I was watching some bad Japanese movie. Then I remembered, no, it's the Bad News Bears. I didn't even recognize it as a BAB movie. It looked like Godzilla on his day off. There was this really terrible sequence where those kids were on some Japanese variety show, and then something about a karate champion. I thought I was dreaming this damn movie. Then there was this sequence that looked to me like one of these kids pounded Godzilla into submission with a baseball bat. Maybe it was just as well they ended the series with this movie. Those kids were getting too old anyway. As it was, they just played secondary rolls here and you felt removed from them. And Kelly's love interest? How contrived can you get? He falls in love with a Japanese geisha girl, one he will probably never see again once he gets home? Get real, people!!! And they couldn't understand each other at all when they first met each other. How is it that by the end of the movie either she's able to understand English or he's able to understand Japanese? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that was ever explained.

The baseball game was a joke. How do you suppose they could have had a fight on the field without causing an international incident? And this business with the coach and the little kid was a little too incredible as well. Hard-hearted hustler is won over by a sad little kid? How corny can you get? I loved the Bad News Bears series. At least I did the first two movies. This one is a real turkey turd. 2 out of 10.

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soranno from Las Vegas, Nevada
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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.

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Kristine (kristinedrama14@msn.com) from Chicago, Illinois
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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

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Wizard-8 from Victoria, BC
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In his autobiography, Tony Curtis blasted this movie, the final entry of the "Bad News Bears" series. Watching this movie, it doesn't take long to figure out why Curtis hated this movie. The strange thing, however, is that despite his less than adequate surroundings, Curtis gives a pretty good performance. He's lively, and manages to deliver a few quips in his trademark sarcastic manner that manage to provoke a few chuckles. Aside from Curtis, however, this movie is a terrible mess. I know these movies aren't supposed to be politically correct, but there are some touches that today could be considered racist. But the storytelling is even worse. For some reason, the kids in this movie don't get a lot of focus, and there's even less footage of them playing baseball. And most of the movie is one scene after another that doesn't advance the thin plot the slightest. It's hard to believe that Bill Lancaster, who wrote the sharp first movie, wrote this sloppy script.

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kandit1
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This movie didn't know what it wanted to be. The whole plot simply doesn't make sense. Like with the first sequel, main characters disappear without explanation and new ones are added. Also like the sequel, they play horrible ball to start with despite being such a good team. Can talent be switched on and off like offense in a wrestling match?

The whole story of the team going to Japan just doesn't make sense. The side plot of Kelly pursuing a relationship is also thrown in without any thought. By the end, you don't care who wins or even if they play at all. In fact, baseball is not even the focus of the movie and the child actors play very minor roles.

Just a terrible movie that never should have been made.

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chubbybunnyjim from Toms River, NJ
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This film didn't follow-up to the first two successful sequels! John Berry, was not a good director, and especially a bad script!!!

Tony Curtis (Father of Jamie Lee, starred in "Halloween" the same year), did an Ok job, and I say that this film was disaster!!!

NO STARS!!!

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Frank Lampard from United States
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It boggles the mind to think that this steaming pile of crap was in some way related to the brilliant 1976 classic with Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. Perhaps having to follow the original was too much for any movie, maybe. HOWEVER, let's not let the makers of this terrible film off the hook so easily. This movie is rancid in every sense of the word. Although it is made under the pretense of following the Bears (or at least the actors that continued to be in these films), the Bears become so secondary during the film, they are almost entirely forgotten. What we are left with is Tony Curtis trying to do a one- man show, and failing miserably. There were so many openings for potential comedic spots that were just completely missed by the makers of this film. For one, could you imagine what kind of hijinks the Bears could have gotten into on a plane flight from the US to Japan? Apparently none, because that was glossed over completely. Seriously, to itemize a list of problems with this turd would take twenty pages. Just know that most of the talent from the original skipped this thing and rightfully so. What you have is a confused cast trying to follow an incoherent and completely ridiculous script and story, that at best, is awful. I don't fault Curtis for this film, no actor or actors could have made this "story" work.

baseball|japan|altered version of studio logo|baseball game|homerun|batter|pitcher|baseball movie|sports team|sequel|

AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Australia:PG / USA:PG