Older doesn't necessarily mean wiser. Take Kevin Costner's newest baseball film, For The Love Of The Game, as just one stark and painful example of this popular addage. It's sad, folks. Just plain sad.

It's also familiar ground, so don't be surprised if you experience a little déjà vu while skimming through this review. Yes, you most certainly have heard everything I'm about to tell you before.

Start with the plot. Kevin Costner is (gasp!) a baseball player. He's playing a mighty good game, the game of his life. It might be his last. He's got a hot young chickie-baby, who might or might no love him, watching the aforementioned big game. Hmm, wonder what she's going to decide?

He's a decent, modest, bright man, wrestling with poignant themes of age, commitment, truth and love, all while pitching his mighty good game! What do you think?

Sound exciting? Maybe, if the film centered around baseball. However, the movie wants more than anything to be THE big date movie of the post-summer movie boom, and it will stop at nothing to have you identify with its characters. So, instead of America's favorite past-time, we get a man and a woman who cheat on each other, roll out more baggage than you can possibly imagine (much more than you have, the studio hopes), and exchange the most inane romantic dialogue in the history of film.

Kevin, motioning to a baseball that he gave to his girlfriend during a game: "I see you still have my ball."

Girlfriend: "I like to hold it. Somewhere I know you're holding it too."

Yikes! OK, so maybe I didn't get every tiny syllable right, but basically I said the words. And no, I'm not going to give you the characters' names. They don't deserve names. They're so paper thin, boring and obnoxious that you won't remember their names five seconds after you leave the theater.

OK, OK. Kevin Costner plays Billy Chapel, the grizzled, 40-year-old pitcher reflecting back on his life. Kelly Preston plays Jane Aubrey, the crazily emotional, single mom who loves him. Happy?

I'm not. I expected much, much better from Sam Raimi, director of the incredible cult faves Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Recently, Raimi scored some Hollywood respectibility with A Simple Plan, along with some major cash from executive producing Hercules and Xena. However, he falls flat on his face with For The Love Of The Game. Sure, there are some nice shots of baseballs being thrown and caught, but do you notice a lot of runners sliding into first base in real baseball games, Sam? Do you?

No, you don't.

This is your bitter, tired movie critic - quietly waiting for American Beauty, The Fight Club and Sleepy Hollow - signing off.