Life > February 14, 2008

By By Jillian King | Staff writer

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, it is only fitting to see a romantic comedy. But take my advice; don’t see this one. Unless, that is, you want to be totally high school and make out to the drowning of a mindless movie.

Attempting to recreate the magic of How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson have reunited in the adventure/romantic comedy Fool’s Gold.

All that remains of that original spark is “bulls***.”

Within the film there is a bizarre and undeveloped jumbling of prissy hustlers, treasure hunts, a strange father-daughter relationship, divorce, a gay Yacht staff couple and a Russian body guard.

Let’s just start with the absurd main characters. Finn (McConaughey) and Tess (Hudson) fell in love during spring break and then got married.

We get a little bit more of their history which includes some obscure researching of an obscure treasure in an obscure library in Spain.

Now, because he’s irresponsible and she dreams of being a history professor, she, against his wishes, procures a divorce.

Tess works on a yacht for Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), a billionaire with a fancy and unexplained British accent.

Nigel is a wise old-man whose inspirational speeches begin with the same lame violin music every time.

Nigel’s American-accented, Paris Hilton-esque daughter Gemma (Alexis Dziena) almost singlehandedly ruined the movie.

An odd flirtation flared between Finn and Gemma, which I found extremely disturbing and annoying since Gemma appeared to be about 13.

It didn’t help that I had just watched an episode of Law & Order: SVU in which Dziena indeed played a child prostitute.

Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart) is Finn’s gangster benefactor who is out to kill Finn since he hasn’t paid his debts.

Although the character doesn’t need much explaining, the ridiculousness of him holding a black and white bunny rabbit like Dr. Evil holds his hairless cat is priceless. Finn’s bounty hunter partner, Alfonz, is supposedly Ukrainian but his “accent” really just sounded like he couldn’t use his tongue. This was both unconvincing and distracting. In a typically Euro-trash way, Alfonz requests prostitutes after dinner.

Now I suppose we need to tackle the movie itself, which doesn’t seem to have any real direction.

It’s marketed as an adventurous romantic comedy, but it ended up a concoction of shoot-em-up action plus a teensy bit of romance with a dash of comedy and a hint of historical fiction.

Confused?

Yeah, I didn’t get it either.

The opening credits are followed by odd blurbs explaining the history of the treasure called The Queen’s Dowry.

Next, Finn is almost killed and left at sea by Bigg Bunny’s posse for sinking the boat and not following through with his promises.

He is later rescued by some inebriated spring breakers. I’m not lying.

About ten minutes in, Finn declares his undying love for Tess in a moment that is supposed to pull the audience’s heart strings.

It can’t fulfill its task, of course, since we had barely met the characters, whose personas seesawed anyway.

The random placing of so-called tender moments completely negated any positive effect they could have.

Ill-timing is the only constant in Fool’s Gold. Usually, I would avoid spoilers but the end is so idiotically cliché I have to share it in order to warn you.

Finn and Tess get back together (gasp!) while treading water and in the next scene Tess is already visibly pregnant.

Finn gets the treasure, and, in trying to impersonate National Treasure, they give all the treasure to a museum because of course they didn’t want the money – just to uncover the history.

Child bride Gemma ends up with Ukrainian Alfonz, creepily but fittingly enough.

Nothing is mentioned about the four men who died during the adventure.

Happily ever after, naturally.

I can be a little positive though.

The Caribbean music was great, as were the locations shown in the film - thank you big studio budget.

As always, Matthew McConaughey looked scrumptious aside from his bizarre Fabio-like hair.

In all honesty, I didn’t get bored the entire time, so there’s something to be said about that.

But you know what the best part was? The preview for Smart People.

My advice, wait to rent it. It’s not worth the arm and leg they’re charging for movies these days.