|
I
think it was once considered for Summer Catch to come out
in the very early summer or even before the season began. Now,
it's coming out in late August and the season is almost over.
Either way, it doesn't matter. Even though the title of the
movie bears the name of the season, it basically doesn't matter
when you see it, for it is just another brain-dead, romantic
teen comedy.
Top-lining
the cast is Freddie Prinze, Jr. He'll probably never get the
chance to out-grow his "teen movie" image, but then
again, who wants him to? Heath Ledger's first big hit was 10
Things I Hate About You. but did he continue making teen
movies after that? No. Freddie is basically stuck in this genre,
turning out surprises like ? and shit like ?. Well, moving on to
his latest teen attack, Summer Catch, his character here
is basically the same, including these twists: he plays
baseball, works for his father's lawn-mowing company, and is
single.
Summer
Catch takes place in Cape Cod, wherever that is. Surely,
it's the summer. There, Brian Dennehy heads the local 'summer
baseball team.' Recruits who want to play in this very elite and
prestige team are pouring in, and one of them is Freddie. The
story, aside from glorifying baseball, is "poor
good-looking boy falls for rich great-looking girl, has plans
killed by the girl's evil and snobby father, making him break
the rules and play baseball when he can." I don't know,
it's something close to that, because in all sincerity, you
(probably not you... but you with the spiked hair!) don't give a
shit about anything in this movie. I didn't.
The
rich girl is played by Jessica Biel, in her first Hollywood gig.
The best friend is played by Matthew Lillard, to which I say,
"Goddamn, how many more movies are they gonna be in
together?" Freddie falls for Biel, they have an awesome
time (even setting a baseball booth on fire), then something
horrible happens so he refuses to see her, and in the end...
well, you could probably figure it out yourself. Summer Catch
is the opposite of intellectual. It's craptacular. Asstastic. Genuinely
bland. It tries to combine romance and comedy, but succeeds at
only one of the two -- comedy (a few chuckles here and there,
nothing great).
Summer
Catch could've been a lot better. The characters, we hardly
care for. Its predictability is amazing, since it follows
today's romantic teen formula too close. Someone should've taken
the initiative to distance this movie from the
"formula," tackle the story, make the dialogue seem
less forced and change the conflict to a different and more
reasonable (we've seen this too many times) one. I don't want to
type-cast Hollywood for turning out brain-dead teen movies (Down
To You, ???), but rather the studio boss(es) who greenlight
this stuff. Somewhere, somehow, someone is in need of a
realization, which is "people go to movies not just for the
entertainment, but also for the story" -- at least, that's
my mentality.
Did
You Know?: Matthew Lillard got turned down for the role in
"Summer Catch." Then he called up Prinze and he hooked up Lillard with the part,
or at least that's what Lillard said when he was on Conan
O'Brien last week.
Note:
You will realize the high rating, which, of course, is insane!
No, the only reason for that: Jessica Biel and her bikini. Yes,
I'm sex hungry. What?! NO!!! Without her, it probably would've
been a 2 out of 10.
TOP
|
