Hey folks. Capone in Chicago here. I've got three reviews of comedies opening today. Let's just say that I'm grouping them together for a reason.

WELCOME HOME, ROSCOE JENKINS

There's a great deal of talent on display in writer-director Malcolm D. Lee's latest comedy Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins (which follows the filmmaker's largely successful works THE BEST MAN, UNDERCOVER BROTHER, and ROLL BOUNCE) about talkshow host Jenkins (Martin Lawrence), who takes his reality show star fiancée Bianca (Joy Bryant) from Los Angeles to his family's home in the South. Needless to say, the city mice and the country mice don't always mesh. Notable African-American actors such as James Earl Jones, Margaret Avery, Nicole Ari Parker and Michael Clarke Duncan are thrown together with comics Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps and Mo'Nique, and the results are fairly predictable. Everyone is vying for screen time and the best one-liners, when a more subtle and thoughtful approach might have resulted in a better movie.

Bryant's character is so utterly insensitive and evil (especially in her dealings with Roscoe's young son) that it impacts our opinion of Roscoe. It's hard to sympathize with a guy who would ever get involved with a woman like Bianca. I know that's the point, but it put me off this film early on. What's worse is that Lawrence is often forced into the role of straight man while other comic actors dish out the jokes all around him. I have always thought Lawrence was a truly funny man who belonged on the big screen, but he refuses to make anything as daring as his stand-up act used to be. When WILD HOGS is the edgiest work you can muster, there's something wrong with your career.

There's not much more to say about ROSCOE JENKINS specifically. The plot is rice-paper thin; character development is non-existent; and the PG-13 jokes are dead in the water, although Mo'Nique always manages to crack me up. But perhaps more significantly, black films need to movie beyond stories centering on large, extended families, with each family member delivering a kernel of homespun wisdom to the audience. There have got to be better, different stories to tell (Malcolm Lee's last film Roll Bounce proved that, even if audiences didn't respond), and I can't wait to see who finally breaks the well-used mold. There have been worse cinematic experiences since the beginning of the 2008, but I don't think the worst of the bunch tried as little as WELCOME HOME, ROSCOE JENKINS to be original.

FOOL'S GOLD

I guess enough people were loopy enough to find HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS watchable enough to want…no, demand a reteaming of stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in this seriously lackluster story of two treasure-hunting lovers (recently divorced from each other) who are traipsing around the Caribbean looking for a shipwreck that both have been looking for since they met. But I'm not here to tell you how intensely boring and shockingly unfunny FOOL'S GOLD is; you can probably guess that for yourself. I'm here to talk about accents. More specifically, I'd like someone to explain why four major characters (that I counted) needed to have the accents they had, or any accent. First there's Donald Sutherland, playing a billionaire with a vaguely British and utterly phony accent. Then you have Ray Winstone, a Brit, doing a terrible Southern accent. Then you get Scot Ewen Bremner doing some sort of Ukrainian thing. And finally there's Malcolm-Jamal Warner doing a generic Caribbean accent. Why? I'll ask that again: Why? Why all the accents? Why is having a Ukrainian treasure hunter funnier than a Scottish one? And how is it possible that McConaughey's lazy Texas drawl is the least annoying accent in this film?

Director Andy Tennant (HITCH; SWEET HOME ALABAMA) has essentially lost control of his rather large cast and this unwieldy script. There are too many cardboard-cutout supporting characters distracting us from what little entertainment value the main story thread offers (it ain't much, folks). As a result, whatever natural charm and likeability McConaughey and Hudson might have to carry the film is buried under an overly complicated backstory on the treasure being sought, and on cartoonish secondary players and storylines. In many ways FOOL'S GOLD is worse than something like MEET THE SPARTANS or this weeks HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE because it's striving for greatness as it falls miserably short. There's some potential there, but it's squandered on easy gags, way too much broad, physical comedy and more plot than this dopey comedy can handle.

HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE

In order for you to even begin to accept--let alone enjoy--the comedy Hottie and the Nottie, you have to be willing to accept one very basic premise: that Paris Hilton is the living, breathing example of ideal beauty. With her wonky eye, piles of extended hair and monotone delivery, Hilton is meant to be our object of worship in the same fashion the film's lead character, Nate (Joel David Moore), worships her. Nate apparently met Cristabel (Hilton) when they were in the first grade, was separated from her shortly thereafter, and has stayed infatuated ever since. Cristabel's lifelong best friend is a hideously ugly girl named June (played as an adult by Christine Lakin). When Nate tracks down his childhood crush years later, it turns out she's still friends with June and has pledged that until June has a man of her own, she won't date. Nate's mission, should he choose to accept it, is to find a man who would not just date June, but enter into a long-term relationship with the beast.

If I sound like I'm being harsh and focusing too much on June's looks, you clearly haven't seen this movie. June is made up to be hideously ugly, with her rotting teeth, blotchy, scab-ridden skin, patchy baldness, hair on every other part of her body and a generally abrasive personality to go along with all of these lovely attributes. But as much as the film thinks it's about helping out the ugly girl, it's really just an exercise in mean behavior and idealization of Paris Hilton. If we all can't strive to be as pretty as her, what reason is there to go on living? It should come as no surprise (nothing in this film should) that June goes through a gradual ugly-duckling-to-swan makeover that makes her attractive by conventional standards and finally makes her worthy to lose her virginity. The film's PG-13 jokes and mentality make it mean-spirited enough to be deplorable without having the teeth to back up its cruelty with truly appalling humor. But what's worse is that the film spends an extraordinary amount of time showing us how much every man in the world falls over themselves for Hilton. Why wouldn't she take this role? Fifty percent of the film is people telling her how beautiful she is, and I never got thirsty enough to drink that Kool-Aid. HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE is a brainless, laugh-free experience with a pinch of evil and a pinch of general unpleasantness. Enjoy!

Capone