by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
C+ Rated R 94 min.
Breasts. Yep. If you go to see Good Luck Chuck, you’re going to see a lot of them. The good news for guys is that every couple of minutes, a breast will appear on the screen. (Sometimes several, in a split screen effect.) And, you might even score points with your girlfriend, because it’s actually a chick flick. Kind of. It’s more like a guy’s movie masquerading as a chick flick. There will be the occasional girl who will actually buy it as a chick flick, but really, what with the gross-out sexual humor, it’s perfectly acceptable to get together with a bunch of the guys and watch it. So Good Luck Chuck uncomfortably straddles the line between a romantic date movie and the kind of thing you can watch with your beer-drinkin’ buddies.
There is something in it for the girls; there are “Aw!” moments in the movie, wherein something is either adorable or really romantic. The biggest problem in taking your girl to one of these is that at some point during the flick she’s going to punch your arm really hard and whisper “I wish YOU’D do that.” But then, a breast appears, and whatever punching pain you’ve suffered will drift away.
While there’s something to be said for mass appeal, the movie seems to do too much and try too hard to be too many different things at once. There’s the gross-out humor aspect, something that’s been showing up more and more in romantic comedies, there’s the sappy-sweet love story and of course, the soft-core porno. Girls will be asking themselves: will he get the girl? The guys will wonder if Jessica Alba’s perky set will ever grace the screen.
If you’ve seen the previews, you’ve got the gist of the story: Charlie discovers that after he dates a girl, the very next guy she meets, she falls in love with and marries. He becomes known to the female population as the “good luck charm” that can help them find “the one.” This reputation means lots of desperate messages on Charlie’s answering machine. It also means lots and lots of sex for Charlie. Once he meets Cam (Jessica Alba), he wants to give up his life of serial sex for just one woman. Unfortunately, after he has sex with a woman, she marries the next man she dates.
From the previews, it looked stunningly predictable to me. Jessica Alba’s cutely klutzy character drew shouted predictions from the packed house. Every time she passed a hazard of some sort, like stairs or waiters holding full trays, I could hear people saying “She’ll never make it past that!” Some of her pratfalls were predictable, yes, but that’s actually what made them funny. Others came out of left field, as she dodged predictable hazards and found slightly unconventional ways to give herself bruises.
Cook’s performance was a bit rough around the edges, though he seemed to do well in the simulated sex scenes. Dane seems to have a start on a career in the porno industry, but he’s unconvincing in scenes that feature anything other than light dialogue or fake sex.
There will be people who hate this movie. That’s because the humor edges a little past raunchy and into some really weird territory. Not that most of it is original. Because it isn’t. Beyond the premise of the movie, there isn’t much that seems to be.
One bright comedic spot is Lonny Ross, who plays Cam’s stoner brother. I’m not telling you anything about him, because he may well be the movie’s comedic saving grace for you, depending on your sense of humor.
My problem with the movie was that Dane Cook was hobbled by the romantic comedy aspect of the movie. His side-kick best friend (Dan Fogler) is happily not restrained, and has some of the funniest (but raunchiest) bits of dialogue. He was the main reason that I saw people leaving the theatre. His foul-mouthed dialogue was actually one of the reasons I stayed in my seat. I kept waiting for Fogler and Ross to appear, and it was always worth a few laughs when they did.
The Bottom Line: Don’t take your mother to this movie expecting it to be the sweet romantic comedy promised in the previews. It CAN be a great date movie, but only if both of you have a somewhat raunchy and twisted sense of humor and neither of you will be offended or embarrassed by the parade of breasts.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
