Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Did you see what I said when I introduced the review for IN THE NAME OF THE KING? Well, it applies here, too. This guy actually went and sat in a theater that was playing this film so that he could tell you about it and save you from ever having to duplicate the experience. Isn’t that worth a few minutes of your time? Talk about taking one for the team. Everyone knows January and February are when you really earn your battle scars as a film critic...

Hey Moriarty,

AICN has killed a lot of downtime at the office for me over the years and I have decided to repay the favor with a review of...wait for it...the new Ryan Reynold's romantic comedy "Definitely, Maybe"! You are welcome!!!

I caught an advanced screening of this last night at the Metreon in San Francisco and let me start by saying this movie is a steaming pile of monkey crap. Romantic comedies are not generally my favorite movies but I'll admit that I enjoyed "Notting Hill" and "Love Actually", so naturally when I saw that "Definitley, Maybe" was made by the same people I had a little confidence that it wouldn't totally suck-ass. I was wrong.

The movie is about a guy (Reynolds) who is telling his daughter (Abigail Breslin) the tale of how he ended up with her mother who could be one of three ladies in his past (played by the delicious Elizabeth Banks, and Rachel Weisz, and Isla Fisher). The fact that Reynold's and the mystery mom are divorced and the daughter is 10 years old says to me that 1) the fact that daughter is just now curious about her parents history indicates that daughter didn't really give a rip about mommy for the past 10 years, or 2) for the sake of the movie it's just a lot cuter coming from a 10 year old than some 4 year old who can't complete sentences like "daddy, what's a threesome?". But I digress.

So Reynolds tells his story of the three women to his daughter so she can wager a guess as to who her mommy might be. The first real problem with the movie is that the three women all appear very perfect initially but then are revealed to have big flaws. Predictiable, typical, romantic comedy flaws that required zero effort on the part of writer/director Adam Brooks. If you haven't guessed them here goes:

Woman 1: flaw - bi-sexual (and flaw meaning "causes problem for protagonist", not a flaw that she likes ladies)

Woman 2: flaw - In love with sexigenarian professor

Woman 3: flaw - crazy whore

The women's character flaws are all delivered like clockwork, about 10 minutes after they are introduced and all seems well, like we're really going to think "Yay, Ryan Reynolds has FINALLY found true love...*sigh*...what could possibly go wrong now?". The worst moment in the film is when Reynolds confesses to Woman 3: Crazy Whore that he loves her (don't worry, not a spoiler) and she responds by saying "Why didn't you tell me this when you were successful?" and breaks his heart. The movie then has the balls to ask us to like her later in the film never making amends for Crazy Whore's superficial heart breaking earlier on (note: when she does like him later he is successful again, what does this say about their relationship?). Through the course of the movie the three women come and go from his life so many times we never give a damn who he ends up with we just want the indecison to finally stop. Pick one you dumb bastard!

My other big problem is the unecessary politcal angle the movie takes for absoultely no reason. In the present Reynold's character works in advertising but in his back story he is an idealistic young man working hard for the Clinton campaign in '92. This makes way for some long-winded diatribes on the Clinton presidency which have no bearing on the story at hand. I get the feeling that Adam Brooks simply wanted a soap box to rattle off his own political agenda, and that's fine if this were a movie about the Clinton presidency, but it's not, it's a shitty romantic comedy, stick to it.

I have to admit I like Ryan Reynolds in certain things but his acting can be so hamfisted at times. His punch lines are delivered like a poor man's Ace Ventura, which works in things like "Van WIlder" and "Just Friends" but not in this. The other problem is that this movie managed to put together a great cast, among them Elizabeth Banks (love), Rachel Weisz (is she only getting roles in things like this and Fred Claus? They're below her), KEVIN KLINE (between this and The Pink Panther he is really slumming it these days), and poor Abigail Breslin, who does her job and makes some cute moments out of virtually nothing, but can't save this flaming turd. It's a shame to see so much talent squandered on such one dimensional, forgettable characters.

I'm tired of the studios popping a squat over the multiplex and squeezing out a formulaic piece of celluloid like this. I suppose I should add that the movie screened really well, which is either a sad commentary on the expectations of audiences today or San Francisco just loves tepid romantic comedy wank.

If you use this call me FIREBAUM.