‘Bad News’ often too vulgar

The PG-13 advisory for “Bad News Bears” declares that there is “rude

behavior and language throughout” the movie. Believe it. Add

insensitive, crude, racially offensive and politically incorrect to

the warning and you’re closer to the core of this film.

What passes for humor in this movie is completely inappropriate

for young Little Leaguers whose parents might send them to see it.

That said, adults will find there are many guilty laughs peppered

throughout the uneven screenplay, which runs way too long at nearly

two hours.

Billy Bob Thornton plays a former major leaguer with a checkered

past and drunken present.

He now lives in a trailer and makes a meager living exterminating

rats.

He’s hired by a single mom to coach her son and his baseball team

of 12-year-old misfits, losers and delinquents who were rejected by

all the other teams.

The kids are an international potpourri of racial and cultural

stereotypes. They include wimps, bullies, a fat kid and even a child

in a wheelchair. The story follows the rise of this bizarre team from

ridiculous losers to impossible contenders. But it’s the potty mouth

language and wild antics of everyone involved that drive the laughter

when it does occur.

The team is sponsored by a strip club whose dancers lead cheers at

the games. The coach slugs down bourbon at practice until he passes

out on the field.

He takes the kids to Hooters for snacks, where the kids sing along

to Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” as they ogle the waitresses.

This is all too gross for youngsters. Yet the PG-13 level may be

too tame for older teens accustomed to the vulgarity of “American

Pie” and “There’s Something About Mary.”

Irreverent and disjointed, “Bad News Bears” is definitely funny at

times, but it’s hard to figure out who the target audience is.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.

Director should be voted off ‘The Island’

The latest sci-fi thriller, “The Island,” starts out as an

interesting vision of how life might be in the year 2019, before it

reverts to present-day overblown movie excess.

I wonder, is director Michael Bay (“Armaged- don,” “Pearl Harbor”)

capable of making a movie without chase scenes or explosions? Does he

know that he doesn’t have to cut away to a different image every two

seconds? Technically, it’s expertly done but it’s time to mix things

up a little.

Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan MacGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett

Johansson) live in a very sterile, regulated environment where

everyone must be “polite, pleasant, and peaceful.” The one excitement

is a daily lottery in which the lucky winner gets to live on “The

Island,” where evidently you can breathe fresh air and live in a

Technicolor paradise.

Jordan finds out that things are not what they seem. Through

scenes reminiscent of “THX 1138,” “Coma,” and “Logan’s Run,” Lincoln

and Jordan escape their habitat and must deal with a very different

reality -- that of action stars. We know this because every so often

they yell, “Run!” or “Go!” and they swap out their sleek white

jumpsuits for black leather. How original.

If Bay and the screenwriters could have ended the movie half an

hour sooner, “The Island” wouldn’t be so bad. It would have ended

with an interesting twist that left room to ponder the moral issues

raised.

Instead, the audience is subjected to exhaustive chase sequences.

What a waste of actors, including Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean and Djimon

Hounsou.

There’s also a lot of product placement in this movie. I could

have perhaps borne the built-in commercials if they could have

rewritten the laughably lousy ending.

* SUSANNE PEREZ of Costa Mesa is an executive assis-tant for a

financial company.