Life > September 27, 2007

By Aubrey Sitler | Contributing writer

After seeing the opening scene, I was convinced that Good Luck Chuck would be a stereotypical but sufficiently entertaining movie worthy of $7.50 and two hours of my Friday evening.

Based on the movie trailers that have been circulating cable TV networks for the past few weeks, I expected the film to be a funny but light romantic comedy capable of engaging girls with its sappy love story as well as captivating guys with enough Dane Cook humor and Jessica Alba exposure to keep their attention. It seemed to fit the category of a good date movie.

After experiencing the film, however, I realized that I was seriously disillusioned.

Good Luck Chuck is, in its own special way, a typical romantic comedy.

It follows the standard “guy meets girl, guy wants girl, guy faces obstacles while trying to pursue girl” structure commonly seen in the genre, but it adds a little twist: crude images, tasteless humor and less than stunning performances.

It follows the life of Charlie Logan (Dane Cook), who, at the age of 10, was cursed by a crazy Goth girl during a heated game of Spin the Bottle.

Now a dentist in his mid-30s, Charlie seems to be having trouble keeping women in his life.

It isn’t until he attends one of his ex-girlfriend’s weddings that he realizes that every woman he has ever been with has married the next man she’s dated.

After word of his reputation as a “good luck charm” has traveled around, women of every size, shape and origin are literally lining up to get their chance at true love by sleeping with “charmed” Charlie.

With the encouragement of his best friend, reconstructive surgeon Stu (Dan Fogler), Charlie complies with every one of these women’s requests.

But he soon realizes that he is not satisfied with his life of sex without love, especially when he runs into Cam (Jessica Alba).

A penguin specialist whose accident-prone lifestyle led her to Charlie, Cam makes him realize that he is genuinely ready to settle down with a steady girlfriend.

Of course, there is still one problem: how can he get the girl when his “lucky charm” will ensure that she is destined to fall, not for Charlie, but for the man that succeeds him in her life?

Unfortunately, there were several components that made this movie a let-down.

For one thing, there was more awkward mumbling from the audience in reaction to the exceedingly pornographic scenes than there was laughter throughout the duration of the film.

And then there were the actors.

Alba has obviously never been a truly celebrated actress, but the alleged success of her performance, not to mention almost all of the humor in the movie, relies solely on the accidents that she causes, such as flinging dental instruments into Cook’s back, or her fall down an icy penguin slide.

Of course, Cook is renowned for being a comedian, but his performance is disappointing: he’s not that funny. The occasional one-liner or strategic physical movement had the audience snickering, but there was not much cause for applause in response to his performance.

The only somewhat redeeming quality in this film was its plotline.

It was indisputably stereotypical and completely predictable, but the general story was nonetheless charming.

Cook and Alba contributed to this a tiny bit in their amiable interactions. It was almost a chick flick.

But unfortunately, a charming plotline combined with unnecessarily crude images and scenes is not a formula for cinematic achievement.

Overall, this film would have been much more successful if it hadn’t been so painfully obvious that it had a romantic comedy plot that was conceived by a woman and a screenplay written and directed by men.

Due to the obvious conflicting interests and goals of these contributors, the intentions of the movie are completely unclear: is it a romantic comedy, a soft-core porno or a gross-out film?

The combination of these genres yields a relatively poor end result.

There isn’t a targeted audience in existence that would find Good Luck Chuck anything more than mediocre.