THE UGLY TRUTH - joyless

Despite re-teaming the director and writers of LEGALLY BLONDE, this new Katherine Heigl vehicle/rom-com is utterly mirthless. Heigl plays a character all too familiar from recent rom-coms- the frosty career-bitch who just needs to get laid by a Real Man (Gerard Butler). It's the same basic set-up as THE ACCIDENTAL HUSBAND, THE PROPOSAL et al. She's a TV producer on a dismal morning show - he's the misogynistic guest-host brought in to boost ratings. He bets that if she can follow his advice, she'll get her dream man - if he loses, he'll quit the show. What then follows is an entirely predictable, entirely mirthless affair. Heigl simply does not have the physical comedy skills to pull of a scene where she's wearing vibrating pants in a restaurant. To see it done better check out Jenna Elfman in KEEPING THE FAITH. As for Gerard Butler, he really needs to work on his American accent because at present it's stuck in Scotland. Grim, grim, grim.

THE UGLY TRUTH is on release in the US, UK and Australia. It is released in Portugal on August 20th and in France, Argentina and New Zealand on August 27th. It is released on September 4th in Denmark, Mexico, Norway and Romania. It is released on September 11th in Spain and Sweden. It is released on September 17th in the Czech Republic, Greece, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine, Brazil, Finland and Iceland. It is released on September 23rd in Belgium, Egypt and Bulgaria. It is released on October 1st in Germany and the Netherlands and on October 9th in Estonia and South Africa. It is released in Italy on November 27th.

JUST MY LUCK - In which we are asked to believe that McFly are the hottest rock band in the universe

JUST MY LUCK is a weak romantic-comedy vehicle for Lindsay Lohan. The set-up is simple. Li-Lo plays a girl who has literally lived a charmed life. One day, at a masquerade ball, she kisses a guy who has been cursed with bad luck all his life. With that kiss, their fortunes change. The guy - played by Chris Pine (Anne Hathaway's squeeze in Princess Diaries 2) - becomes super lucky and Li-Lo becomes a loser. The movie then predictably follows the two of them as they fall in love with each other. That's it. Now, I'm not against the odd goof-ball teen flick that relies on an unbelievable premise. After all, I really liked She's The Man. But JUST MY LUCK fails on a number of levels. The movie contains not one single laugh, and depite being directed by the same guy who gave us Miss Congeniality, entirely fails to deliver a similar feel-good factor. I don't think the actors are at fault here - although the movie is stocked with more than its fair share of plastic OC rejects. Rather the mechanical grinding through the formula gives the whole production a rather sterile feel. The soul-less quality is magnified by the fact that the flick is a shameless merchandising tool for everything from the Hard Rock cafe to Tide washing up powder. And the biggest marketing ploy of all involves making Li-Lo's boyfriend the manager of, I kid you not, McFly. Frankly, it wasn't the fortune-changing-through-kissing plot line that had me incredulous so much as being asked to believe that McFly were about to kick off the greatest British invasion since The Beatles.

To summarise: you should not watch this movie unless you are a fan of McFly. In which case, you deserve what you get.

JUST MY LUCK is on release in the US, Australia and UK. It hits France on July 5th 2006, and Germany and Austria on August 17th.