Summer Catch

Charlotte Observer Kevin Baxter

It's no surprise, and it's trite, but sometimes fun -- and not magic -- is more than enough.

Baltimore Sun Staff (Not credited)

A fuzzy, feel-good movie about baseball, babes and believing in yourself.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Fuzzy, feel-good movie about baseball, babes and believing in yourself.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Under Michael Tollin's direction, Prinze does well in what is surely the most complex character he has played on the screen.

Variety Joe Leydon

Haphazard mix of boisterously crude comedy, romantic entanglements, class-conscious clashes and intensely competitive hardball.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Freddie Prinze Jr. has a look in his eye that is equal parts self-infatuation and boyish flash of fear.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A lifelong baseball enthusiast, director and co-producer Mike Tollin -- persuaded many real-life baseball figures to make cameo appearances.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

Whenever we're not at the ballpark, the film falls back on teenage relationship clichés. That's most of what's wrong with it, actually.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Too bad the movie didn't take its own advice and risk coming up with a fresh story.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The screenplay, with its relentlessly schematic characters saying relentlessly schematic things, is so moronic that it makes you long for a documentary on the real Cape League.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Neither drama nor comedy, Summer Catch is a long, slow lob of a movie that never crosses the plate.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

To help Prinze sail past the eventually unbearable clichés of Kevin Falls and John Gatins' script, director Mike Tollin has assembled an impressive supporting cast.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Prinze, Lillard, and Biel are all pleasant enough to look at, but the film's Romeo and Juliet tropes are shopworn by now, and the movie gives us nothing else.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Uninspired baseball romance.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Tries mightily to have the charm of "Bull Durham," but instead fields raunchy sex jokes, predictable story line, dumb dialogue and a lackluster love affair.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's a movie that should have been called on account of boredom.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A trite, bantamweight "Bull Durham," hasn't a single line, gibe, gesture or twist that hasn't already been chewed up and spat out in many a movie baseball dugout.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Awful light drama.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Summer Catch is the sludge at the bottom of the barrel.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Can only be enjoyed with a skullful of Old Bohemian and a faceful of high school crotch.

The New York Times Lawrence Van Gelder

A mound of standard-issue parent-child conflicts and enough self-help cliches to drive Polonius to the aquavit barrel at Elsinore.

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

Given how uninvolving Summer Catch is, the truly remarkable pitching here was not so much on the mound as in the executive office where someone convinced Warner Bros. to green-light this turkey, which should have been called Good Will Hitting.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Filming this mess in North Carolina (strike three).

Portland Oregonian Chris Hewitt

Apparently, you can lead a Prinze to a movie, but you can't make him act.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The equivalent of a full-course meal with no calories. It is a mirage of a movie, 100 minutes of nothing.