Summer Catch (2001)

Freddie Prinze Jr. has a look in his eye that is equal parts self-infatuation and boyish flash of fear. It's a look that seems to be asking, imploringly, ''If this one isn't a hit, am I going to go down as the new Judd Nelson?'' The wanly watchable Summer Catch, a go-for-your-dream sports-and-sex comedy that casts Prinze as a ''blue-collar'' pitcher taking a shot at stardom in Cape Cod's elite youth baseball league, could mark the official commencement of Prinze's Nelson-ization. He's no more believable as a rebel Massachusetts landscaper/jock than Nelson was as a courtroom devil's advocate in ''From the Hip,'' but it's precisely out of such roles that future careers in bad sitcoms are sprung.

As the token local on a team of nationally recruited hotshots, Prinze doesn't just try to pitch his way to a minor-league contract. He trades up in girlfriends, too, dumping trash kitten Brittany Murphy for refined WASP doll Jessica Biel, the rich girl whose lawn he mows. Were it not for the fact that the characters had already lost their virginity, this could be the '80s all over again. Call it ''Damp Lukewarm American Summer.''

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