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.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - MONSTER IN LAW

MONSTER IN LAW is a deeply unfunny, painfully badly written rom-com rip-off of MEET THE PARENTS, from director of the infinitely better LEGALLY BLONDE. J-Lo stars a sweet girl who meets-cute with a sweet doctor (the anodyne Michael Vartan). They get engaged to the horror of his Barbara-Walters-like mega-successful mother, played by Jane Fonda. Coming back to the big screen with this role will go down as one of Fonda's biggest career mistakes. It's amazing to me that a woman who has been so politically engaged, and given such outstanding performances, would make such a shockingly banal film, playing such as two-dimensional character, so badly. Her character schemes against J-Lo's character. J-Lo's character schemes back. And then there's a ridiculous and unbelievable final scene where everyone gets mushy.

Pure cinema trash.

MONSTER IN LAW was released in summer 2005. It is available on DVD.

21 - far less interesting than you might have hoped

21 is a movie about a bunch of MIT math geeks who go to Vegas, count cards, make a pile of money, but then incur the ire of their svengali-like professor and a Vegas security guard. And no, I'm not spoiling the plot. The trailer does that already, and even if it didn't, you'd figure out all the plot twists well before they occured. The movie evidently wants to dazzle us with a story of an improbable rise to wealth and equally precipitous fall; it wants us to enjoy the vicarious ride from geek to cool. Let's all buy in to that Ocean's Eleven glamour! Sadly, it doesn't live up to its billing. Like I said before, this is mainly because the story - as bizarre as it is - simply isn't interesting enough to hold our attention for two hours. How many times can we really get interested in a geek becoming popular, being mean to his childhood friends, losing everything and learning what "really matters"? The narrative arc contains no elements of surprise and the supporting characters are insufficiently drawn. Added to this, beyond Jim Sturgess in the title role, the rest of the cast was pretty unimpressive, not least Kevin Spacey in one of his trademark over-bearing, hammy performances.

21 is already on release in the US, Israel, Brazil and Germany and opens this weekend in the UK, Greece, Iceland, Spain and Sweden. It opens on the 17th in Belgium, Argentina, Russia, Estonia and Italy. It opens on April 25th in Turkey. It opens in May in Portugal, Australia, Finland and Japan. It opens in June n France, Singapore, Mexico, Norway and the Netherlands.