Good Luck Chuck

Director: Mark Helrich
Starring: Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler, Ellia English, Chelan Simmons, Sasha Pieterse
Running Time: 96 Min.
Rating: R

** (out of ****)

I like to think I go into every film objectively, but who am I kidding? When you go into something like Good Luck Chuck there comes with it a certain set of expectations and not all of them are good. Especially when it stars two celebrities like Dane Cook and Jessica Alba who have so far proven themselves unworthy of being referred to as anything other than just "celebrities." This film does very little to change that and didn't go far at all in exceeding my already low expectations. I anticipated it being bad but I think what surprised me most was the manner in which was.

Cook is Chuck Logan, a dentist who in his adolescence has a hex put on him by a goth girl he rejected at a "Spin The Bottle" party in 1985. Now every woman he sleeps with falls in love and marries the next guy she dates after him. The secret gets out and girls are banging down his door. Of course, only in the movies would that be considered any kind of "curse." The only person who actually seems to recognize this is his best friend, Stu (Dan Fogler), resident plastic surgeon and pervert. That he's a plastic surgeon is a much more important detail in this film than it should be and a fact Stu not so subtly reminds us of throughout. Come to think of it, Stu is incapable of doing or saying anything "subtly."

The full effect of this hex is felt when Chuck meets and dates the clumsy but beautiful Cam (Alba) who he meets at his ex-girlfriend's wedding. She's prone to pratfalls, an unnecessary addition to josh Stolberg and Scott Glenn's already somewhat brainless script and a joke that's executed about 15 times too many during the course of the picture. It gets very, very tiresome. She's also a penguin keeper at the local zoo, one of the few details I enjoyed in the film. I like penguins because they're funny without ever trying to be, something you can't say about any of the humans in this picture. So now Chuck's problem is that if he sleeps with Cam he'll lose her for good. But how can he NOT sleep with her? It's Jessica Alba! So now Chuck (with help from Stu) has to figure out how to reverse this curse or at the least find some way around it. You probably won't be surprised to hear that the results of this are often vulgar and disgusting, lacking even the slightest hint of wit or intelligence on the part of screenwriters.

Considering the commercials and trailers for the film (which marketed it as a light romantic comedy) it really came out of left field how crude and crass it ended up being. There isn't a single scene that doesn't feature people either talking about sex or having it. Nearly every woman (except for Alba) appears topless and I was starting to think my copy of Good Luck Chuck was replaced with a soft-core porno. Don't get me wrong I'm not usually one to look a gift horse in the mouth but here it comes off strange and creepy. Besides the tone being way off, the way it's presented by director Mark Helrich is actually disturbing and uncomfortable. Imagine if a light, fluffy comedy like You've Got Mail was interrupted mid-film by a Boogie Nights training video. The obvious inspiration for this was raunchy R rated comedies like Wedding Crashers and Knocked Up, but all it does is succeed in imitating the misogynist spirit of the latter without any of the heart. In all fairness, even Knocked Up (which I didn't enjoy) was better than this. Not by much though. If your idea of a good time is watching Dan Fogler pleasure himself with a melon I'm sure you'll have a blast.

Jessica Alba is actually fine here. She's cute and adorable, which is really all she needs to be. She's in her comfort zone with this role and far from the biggest problem in the picture. But before she uncorks the champagne and starts celebrating not being awful for a change I still say she desperately needs to take this time off to sit down with her agent and have a long talk. In the past year or so you may have noticed the public's perception of her has slowly shifted from "She so hot!" to "Wow, she can't act at all." Unless she finds better projects with directors who will push her to improve as an actress she'll have problems because moviegoers are starting to catch on.

Cook, on the other hand, is woefully miscast. He has many critics but in his defense with this and Employee of the Month he hasn't exactly been given the greatest material or leading ladies. I don't think he's a bad actor but he's one that gives off a certain vibe and unless he's cast in the right role he won't be effective. He excels when playing a leech in a supporting role like in Mr. Brooks, but when we're asked to root for him as an underdog in a light comedy it doesn't work because he comes off as a womanizing creep. He has zero chemistry with Alba and they give off no sparks at all. Hilariously enough, he has better chemistry with the actresses who play the myriad of topless women who appear throughout the picture, one of whom (Chelan Simmons) is blessed with considerably more charisma and even looks better than Alba. She probably would have been a better choice for the lead.

The film's real horror is my old pal from Balls of Fury, Dan Fogler. It's never one person's fault that a movie fails but Fogler's performance here is as close as you're ever going to get. Every line of dialogue he shrieks and each word he yelps is like a hammer to the skull. The sole purpose of his presence in the film is to annoy the hell out of us. Mission accomplished. Scariest of all, this Tony-Award Winning star of stage and screen is actually set to play Alfred Hitchcock in the upcoming film, Number 13 later this year. The "Master of Suspense" is shaking in his grave I'm sure.

I have to admit there was one scene I found hysterical. It occurs toward the end and involves airport security. Although I'm not sure what it says when the actor playing the airport security guard gives a better performance than just about anyone else in the film. As bad as this movie is I'd still rank it above other comic disasters like Cook's own aforementioned Employee of the Month or something like The Heartbreak Kid because it did take risks and I wasn't bored. Just occasionally repulsed. The kindest thing I could say about Good Luck Chuck is at least it failed memorably, and not at all how I expected it to.