Welcome back to the cinematic big leagues, Dennis Quaid, we've missed you!

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 21, 2020

Fathers and sons and baseball. There's no combination like it. The Rookie -- it's a swing -- it's a hit -- it's going, going, gone!!! A grand slam home run.

| Nov 9, 2019

At two-plus hours, The Rookie is a good 20 minutes too long, but for father-son teams waiting eagerly for the umpire's "Play ball!", it's an uplifting season opener.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 12, 2014

Morris ultimately lasted two partial seasons in the majors, and the film's rendering of his minor-league struggle is so enjoyable you want to see more of that and less of the everyday life preceding it.

| May 12, 2014

Though Hancock traffics in a lot of bogus small-town sentiment, The Rookie exhibits a refreshingly honest understanding of baseball as a job, with long road trips away from home and a workmanlike routine.

| May 12, 2014

As Morris, the reliable Quaid throws heat, delivering smoothly in dramatic scenes and convincingly from the mound.

| May 12, 2014

Refreshing and compelling.

| May 12, 2014

This entry in the genre is a true story that is, sadly, hampered by some signposted plot developments and undernourished characters.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 12, 2014

It's Quaid and his fellow actors, Rachel Griffiths and Brian Cox, who lift the film out of its intermittent doldrums, and together they deliver that rare thing: a nuanced sports movie.

| Mar 12, 2013

The Rookie is shot through with star-spangled sentiment, but its light touch and "true story" origins combine to make it feelgood fun even for schmaltz-phobic Brits.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 12, 2013

Until The Rookie came along, I'd forgotten how good and smart a family film can be.

| Mar 12, 2013

Slow moving, even pedestrian at times, yet this Dennis Quaid vehicle strikes a lot of genuinely heartwarming moments along the way.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2013

Deftly constructed to stoke the baseball-phenom fantasies of coulda-shoulda-woulda middle-aged guys and fields-of-dreaming young diamond studs.

Full Review | Feb 23, 2012

Earnest, uplifting baseball melodrama

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 14, 2011

Sweet and engaging despite some flaws.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 29, 2010

In one of his greatest performances, Dennis Quaid puts nasty velocity and wicked movement on his delivery. A patient, emotionally honest sports film about resurrecting a dream and investing all you never knew you had.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 17, 2010

It spreads the inspirational butter thicker than the diamond action and buries the school team beneath Morris' quest for a new career, but develops a lyrical sense of what it's like to resurrect self-worth and chase one's dreams.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Earnest to the point of blandness.

| Aug 1, 2008

The Rookie is one of those rare, wonderful 'formula' films that ... favors understatement over exaggeration, subtlety over sentimentality.

| Original Score: A | Sep 9, 2007

I would almost rather have seen an A&E biography than a concocted Hollywood parable of unrealized dreams.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2007