My Past Loves - September 2007

From 411mania.com - September 24, 2007

"GOOD LUCK CHUCK" REVIEW

by Joseph Lee

The most unrealistic premise ever. Who would turn down Jessica Alba?

Starring:
Dane Cook as Charlie Logan
Jessica Alba as Cam "Murphy" Wexler
Dan Fogler as Stu
Lonny Ross as Joe

Story: Charlie Logan gets a hex placed on him when he refuses to kiss a goth girl as a kid. The result is that when any woman has sex with him, they will fall in love with the next man they meet. Things are going fine for an over-sexed Charlie, until he meets Cam and falls in love. Charlie tries his hardest to avoid sex so he doesn't lose her.

Fun Trivia: Jennifer Love Hewitt was originally cast as Cam, but because of scheduling conflicts had to leave the project. So instead we have Jessica Alba.

I like Dane Cook. There's something about his style of comedy, regardless if it's stolen or whether or not it is annoying to others, that I enjoy. I've enjoyed his stand-up career immensely. Due to his popularity, it was inevitable that he enter the realm of movies. He's actually had a few bit parts here and there since about 1997, but he hadn't yet had a feature role. (I recommend his cameo in Mystery Men as "The Waffler".)

Suddenly he began having bigger roles until finally starred in his own vehicle, Employee of the Month. Personally, I thought that movie was bland and boring as a PG-13 comedy. I had a mixed opinion about Good Luck Chuck until the trailers and the fact it promised to be a raunchy R-rated comedy swayed me. R-rated comedies can either be really good, as we've seen this year with Superbad. Excited, I went into the theatre expecting to laugh.

This movie has many flaws, and I think it's because of the fact it's rated-R. They use their R-rating as a crutch; throwing every cuss word, euphemism for semen and pair of breasts at us in lieu of actual jokes for the majority of the film. It's a sex comedy, so you almost feel like it should be rated-R, but I think it could have worked a lot better without the raunchy segments. Instead of relying on the premise your stars, you make dirty jokes just to make them or go for the gross-out route. It doesn't serve any purpose and most of the time it's just not funny.

My biggest complaint would have to be casting Dan Fogler and just including his character. Not only is he not funny, but he is extremely annoying. Whenever Cook's character says something relevant to the plot, Fogler makes a joke about breasts or semen. Once or twice would have been acceptable. Fogler's character does this every scene he is in. It makes it hard to enjoy a movie when there is a character that is so annoying it makes you want to leave. That is the case here.

What works is the chemistry between Cook and Jessica Alba and the little jokes at her expense. The scenes of Cook trying his hardest to please and get a date with her or his attempts to avoid sex. Some funny moments do shine through in a movie that seemingly doesn't have many of them. A montage of Dane having sex with multiple women springs to mind, because of some of the bizarre situations he winds up in. Alba's character having lots of little accidents occur is funny and you also learn she is surprisingly good at physical comedy.

None of this really can save this movie, however. Instead of writing jokes or a decent story, they make dirty puns. Dan Fogler brings down this movie a lot as well. If it seems like I'm being repetitive it's because this movie was repetitive with what it did wrong. It really brought me down because it had a lot of potential. I'd say that it's best to at least wait and give this a DVD rental, but I wouldn't recommend it.