Summer Catch

The normally vapid, blank and bloodless Freddie Prinze, Jr. heads up a surprisingly effective cast in this amusing and likable--if shallow and sometimes bumbling--romantic comedy about college baseball players looking to get noticed on a summer league frequented by pro-team scouts. Two-dimensional characters--the party animal, the flamboyant show-off, the struggling-with-his-inner demons pitcher--and magical, baseball-as-philosophy voice-overs aside, there's entertainment value in the cheap humor and good chemistry between Prinze and Jessica Biel, who plays the sexy-sweet daughter of a rich and disapproving daddy (Bruce Davidson). Game-related passages are incredibly clumsy--but having said that, Summer Catch is not the brain-dead, college-age Bull Durham wannabe it looks like. Optional. (R. Blackwelder)