With a script rejected by both Tom Hanks and Richard Gere, Bernie Mac deserves some credit for taking on “Mr. 3000.” Unfortunately, Mac and his associates fell one too many balls short in making this film worth the watch.

In a longwinded, predictable showdown, Mac plays Stan Ross, a selfish power hitter who returns from his 10-year retirement to reclaim his title of a 3000-hit hall-of-famer. It somehow surfaces that a mistake has been made in calculating Ross’s 3000 hits, leaving him just three balls short of the title. Ross must return now to the field to put himself on top again.

Viewers will find themselves scrounging for laughs that might make this story worth their time and the hefty ticket price. The lazily worked script doesn’t try for much screwball humor — a panting Ross sweating from exhaustion and confusion on the high-tech workout machines was the closest the audience will get to a smile, and even that scene was sloppily put together and not all that funny.

— Marcus Cohlan