Good Luck Chuck Review

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"Good Luck Chuck" reviews

Movie

Good Luck Chuck

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2009-08-20 20:36:50

Rating

2/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

Once you wade through the expected fart, excrement and morbid-obesity jokes, Good Luck Chuck is, well, only half bad. In fact, given the expectations, it might just be the surprise mediocrity of 2007!

Story

If only Chuck (Connor Price) had complied with the rules of Spin the Bottle in 1985—well, there'd apparently be no movie. The goth girl he refuses to kiss as a youngster puts a hex on him, thereby establishing Good Luck Chuck's tenuous storyline: Every girl he ever sleeps with shall find her true love immediately following their one-nighter. Cut to present day, which, sure enough, finds a grown-up Chuck (Dane Cook) scoring in the sack but not in the romance department. It doesn't take long for word of his cupid-like superpower to spread like wildfire in the female community, sending lovelorn women lining up for the chance to find true love via sex with Chuck. Chuck's childhood friend Stu (Dan Fogler) thinks he'd be crazy not to capitalize on such an opportunity, and after brief reluctance Chuck agrees. Then he meets, and falls head-over-heels for, Cam (Jessica Alba), a clumsy beauty who initially rejects Chuck's advances because of his reputation. Before long, though, they're a couple and it dawns on Chuck that she may be with him for the same reason as his past quickies. So he delays sex with Cam to try and reverse the curse, for fear of losing her to the next guy she meets if he beds her.

Acting

Chemistry, always the unsung hero of romantic comedies, is non-existent between Good Luck Chuck's odd couple that is Jessica Alba and Dane Cook. For Alba, not a single of her scenes would be laughable if not for the constant pratfalls to which her character is prone. She's capable of playing cute in her few tender moments, and God knows she excels at being hot—her sideboob scene will surely become the most freeze-framed scene in history when the DVD is released—but she lacks the natural goofiness of Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary and the screen presence of Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly (a movie Chuck's screenwriter clearly loved). Cook, with his highly split fan base, is already at somewhat of a career crossroads: Nobody wants to see him play it straight, but nobody wants to see a movie full of his standup shtick, either. He does both as Chuck, and it's not totally unsuccessful, but it's as culpable as Alba's ineffectiveness for their lack of chemistry. Fogler (Balls of Fury), meanwhile, as the token sidekick/wingman, garners the most laughs for the profanity he spews, looking and sounding like a grown-up Jonah Hill.

Direction

It's that time of year. Seemingly every single week there is at least one comedy thrown our way that falls short for its concessions, namely a lack of originality. This week it's Chuck, which may at least be the best of the worst, so to speak. That's about as high as the praise goes, however. The movie's foundation is a somewhat imaginative idea that predictably falters when stretched to a feature-length story by writer Josh Stolberg. It starts off on a downright creepy note with an opening scene that truly comes close to kiddie porn. From then on, rookie director/longtime editor Mark Helfrich mixes in a few highs with many lows. His highs come in the form of unapologetic raunchiness that will please both comedy fans and young male sneakers-in; the lows consist of Alba's pratfalls ad nauseam, a little toilet humor and one excessive obesity gag so distasteful that it makes Norbit look like a public service announcement. The fact people will howl with laughter is the real shame. In the end, Helfrich turns in the unevenness we've come to expect from comedies of this sort, while the writers take the story precisely where we've come to expect. That said, we've certainly seen worse this year.

Bottom Line

Hollywood.com rated this film 2 stars.

Movie

Good Luck Chuck

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2007-11-02 15:40:30

Provider

Review

Famous in America, but obscure over here - and likely to remain so on this evidence - Dane Cook is a stand-up turned actor in the vein of Steve Martin and Robin Williams. Unlike those two, he appears to be bypassing the great early films and going straight for the dreck. Good Luck Chuck is a soulless, witless rom-com that's easy on the rom and not too hot on the com. Cook plays Chuck, a dentist who's been cursed since the age of ten never to find love. He does, however, have the happy knack of being the last sexual encounter for every one of his partners before they discover true love.

This makes him terrifically lonely, though hugely attractive to the opposite sex. So women beat a path to his door and practically frog-march him into bed (frequent shots of topless women are just about the only thing liable to sell this movie - sad). This existence of shallow but regular sex comes to an end when he falls head over heels for Jessica Alba. She looks incredible as ever, but her acting deficiencies are so pronounced the film almost judders to a halt every time she's asked to do more than laugh at Cook's hapless slapstick.

As the film realises its main romantic plot has no future, it grows ever coarser, relying on the sort of crude sex gags that have been exhausted by years of American Pie and Road Trip. In the end, poor Cook is left trying to get it up with a stuffed penguin. Good Luck Chuck doesn't know whether it's When Harry Met Sally or an American take on a Confessions movie and sadly winds up flopping limply somewhere in between.