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On this 'Rebound,'
we've got lame

Rebound. With Martin Lawrence, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Patrick Warburton. Directed by Steve Carr (1:43). PG: Mild language, thematic elements. At area theaters.
Later this summer, we'll get a remake of "The Bad News Bears," a 1976 hit about a reluctant coach who turns around a kiddie sports team. For now, we'll have to sit on the bench with "Rebound," a dreary comedy in the same mold, only moldier.

This movie feels like it was the product of some court-ordered community service. There are five people credited with hatching the story and screenplay, but it doesn't take five people to rip off the basics of this overplayed genre - the outcast athlete or coach who can only get work teaching kids, then finds himself drawn to them, ultimately becoming a new man while urging the kids on to the championship.

Here the sport is basketball, and the second-chance coach is Roy McCormick, played by Martin Lawrence in a performance so lackluster it's as if he sent a body double while the real Martin stayed home in bed. (He seems slightly more awake as a preacher, in this dual-role effort.)

Lawrence was once perceived as a raunchy wild card. With "Rebound," he cements a career move into predictability and blandness, which don't suit him.

Because of some vague anger-management problems, Coach Roy is booted from the college circuit and winds up helping a junior-varsity team called the Smelters learn how to dribble with the ball instead from their mouths.

There's one good player (Oren Williams), plus the usual collection of "types" - a nervous kid who throws up, a geeky kid whose growth spurt comes in handy, a boy who cares more for his looks than the game and a tough girl (beautiful Tara Correa from "Judging Amy" wink who scores mostly by scaring everyone out of her way on the court.

Naturally, there's a love interest - a single mom (Wendy Raquel Robinson) who wants to keep Coach Roy concentrating on his work so her son will have a father figure.

Other unidimensional characters include Patrick Warburton, as a determined rival coach, and Horatio Sanz, in a small sidekick role.

Now that Coach Roy "got game," it's time to work on Martin Lawrence.