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Can
you believe how lame this is? (l-r) Johansson and Barrymore
in He’s Just Not That Into You. |
Wrong
Guy, Wrong Movie
By
Ann Morrow
He’s
Just Not That Into You
Directed
by Ken Kwapis
He’s
Just Not That Into You was inspired by a remark on an
episode of Sex and the City, and that’s where it should’ve
stayed. Instead, two of the show’s writers, Greg Behrendt
and Liz Tuccillo, wrote a self-help book based on the line,
and now there’s a movie that’s less substantial than the episode.
Oh, and it stars Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, and
Drew Barrymore, who don’t exactly bring a wealth of experience
with rejection to their roles. For Connelly, who plays a married
mother of two with an immature husband, the strain of being
miscast is visible in every scene.
Not that any cast could improve this glossily insulting piece
of chick-flick fluff. A series of interlocking stories, it
centers on Gigi (adorable Ginnifer Goodwin), a self-confessed
date stalker who becomes obsessed with Conor (Kevin Connelly),
a bland real-estate agent, after one date. But Conor is only
interested in his gal pal, Anna (Johansson), a dim-witted
Don Juanita who is pursuing Ben (Bradley Cooper), a generic
jock who is married to uptight Janine (Connelly). Anna is
friends with Mary, who is Ben’s advertising rep. Hoping for
a chance encounter with Conor, Gigi meets Alex (Justin Long)
at the bar he manages, and he bluntly tells her that Conor
is not interested in her. For some unfathomable reason, Gigi
and Alex become friends, and he continues to crush her hopes
about every guy she meets. Meanwhile Beth (Jennifer Aniston)
reluctantly breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, Neil (Ben
Affleck), because he’s against marriage on principal.
And that’s the plot: to put the women in humiliating situations
with men who are shallow (or blatantly misogynistic, like
party-boy Alex). Gigi’s relationship neuroses are accentuated
to ridiculous ends, and her demeaning dating faux pas are
not the least bit funny. There’s some mildly amusing commentary
from Mary (Barrymore) on the hazards of dating through technology
(between e-mailing, voice-mailing, texting, cell and home
phoning, MySpacing, instant messaging, and video chatting,
she says, “that’s seven ports to get seven rejections from”),
but Mary has the least screen time.
In contrast to a Sex episode, the film’s wardrobe is
as nondescript as a Land’s End catalog—but that’s a miniscule
complaint considering its advice-column scenarios consist
of hooking up and putting up with jerks.
An
Inspector Stalls
The
Pink Panther 2
Directed
by Harald Zwart
The 2006 Pink Panther reboot was a prime indicator
of Hollywood’s bone-dry idea bank. Here was a series that
had become a parody of itself before Peter Sellers was even
dead, brought back to the screen on the premise that it would
be funny to have Steve Martin do a fake French accent. (Which
is a major miscalculation: Martin hasn’t made a funny film
in 20 years.)
Naturally, it made a bajillion dollars.
Which, naturally, prompted a sequel. And in big-star, major-franchise,
Hollywood fashion, The Pink Panther 2 is almost completely
innocuous. There’s nothing about the film that elicits major
groans, but then there’s nothing terribly memorable about
the film at all. It’s light, breezy, and dumb—none of which
is meant in a particularly complimentary way.
Steve Martin reprises the role of Inspector Clouseau, who
at the outset is assigned to parking-ticket duty. When a series
of historical artifacts are stolen—including the Pink Panther
diamond, duh—Chief Inspector Dreyfuss (John Cleese, stepping
in for Kevin Kline in everything but the French accent) assigns
Clouseau to a “dream team” of investigators that includes
Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, Yuki Matsuzaki, and Bollywood
actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Emily Mortimer and Jean Reno
return as, respectively, Clouseau’s girlfriend/assistant,
Nicole, and partner, Ponton. They all set off on a series
of location shoots around Europe to find the thief, and ta-da,
there’s your film.
Again, in typical Hollywood-sequel fashion, the picture is
stuffed with recognizable names, if only to distract from
the thinness of the plot. But even the actors themselves seem
distracted: Jeremy Irons looks terribly bored in his role
as one of the theft suspects; Molina is simply wasted in a
role that offers nothing to the picture but another familiar
face. Even Cleese seems to be going through the motions, never
quite taking advantage of the absurd notion that the French
Chief Inspector is suddenly, for some reason, British. The
filmmakers’ ace in the hole—the onscreen reunion of Martin
with his All of Me co-star Lily Tomlin, for the first
time in 25 years—is just another opportunity untapped, thanks
to the lack of decent material.
Stocked with half-baked verbal slapstick and pratfall after
pratfall after pratfall, The Pink Panther 2 is not
quite an abomination: It’s efficiently directed, and supplies
a few decent chuckles without resorting to gratuitous boots
to the crotch. But for a picture with a budget in the dozens
of millions, it feels more like a warmup than an exercise.
—John
Brodeur
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