On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 68/82 |
Kelly Metz |
I don't like movies that are raunchy just because they CAN be. Extremely pointless. Heigl and Butler had zero chemistry. Just plain dumb. |
| 152/169 |
Max Braden |
Dumb. Heigl looks great but plays an unbelievable character, and Eric Winter didn't even get a chance at playing a character. |
The term “battle of the sexes,” when used to describe a film, is a thoroughly misleading one. Not only is the film typically devoid of action and combat sequences (as promised by the word “battle”), but the resulting film fare is typically anything but sexy. Silly and romantic? Maybe. But sexy? Not at all.
Alas, the British actor, Gerard Butler, who was oh-so-good in the film Mrs. Brown alongside Judi Dench, is the latest to fall prey to this “battle of the sexes” concept. You may remember him from P.S. I Love You with Hillary Swank, a film that was just as schmaltzy as it sounds. This time, instead of the Million Dollar Baby herself, he gets the luscious Katherine Heigl, who was recently knocked up by Seth Rogen.
The film follows a romantically challenged morning show producer (Heigl) who is challenged by her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler) to complete a series of outrageous tests in a TV segment called (you guessed it), “The Ugly Truth.” These tests will ostensibly have the dual purpose of A) proving Butler’s pessimistic views of relationships in general and B) helping Heigl find true love. Though the slim synopses released by the studio do not reveal much more about the plot, does anyone reading this have any doubt as to who Heigl’s character falls in love with?
Behind the camera, the film will be directed by Robert Luketic, who most recently had a couple of box-office hits with 21 and Monster-In-Law. This film reunites him with writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, with whom he collaborated on the first Legally Blond film. That 2001 classic (yes, I said, classic . . . you got a problem with that?) was saved largely by the deft balancing act by Reese Witherspoon as she found just the right mix of comedic acting smarts and blond stupidity to elevate the source material. I’m not sure that either Butler or Heigl has the ability to make this film more than a tepid retread of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days but if nothing else, Luketic has played the genre-bending card before. Let’s pray he has the right hand again. (Jason Lee/BOP)
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