Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Why does this review not surprise me?

Remember, kids, this is from the director of LEONARD PART 6 and CITY SLICKERS PART 2: THE SEARCH FOR SOMEONE WHO STILL GIVES A FUCK. Ick. Ick. Ick.

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here

For those of you just joining us (well, me), allow me to repeat: a big emotional outpouring done in a very public setting (most often a wedding) does not pass for comedy anywhere in the world. And yet, here we have it again: one character declaring his/her undying love not over a quiet, romantic dinner somewhere, but in front of a room filled with strangers and/or family members, all on hand for some event other than the unfunny one they're watching. MADE OF HONOR is a film that doesn't have an original thought in its head or an original idea in its plot. The outcome of the friendship between Tom and Hannah (Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan), which began in college and has gone unrequited ever since, is never in doubt, and anyone who is fooled into thinking the pair won't end up together by the end has clearly never been to a movie in their entire lives.

And let me just address this to Patrick Dempsey directly. I have no idea if he reads this or any other site, but if someone who knows him would pass this onto him, I'd be eternally grateful. Dude, you got lucky with ENCHANTED because anyone standing next to Amy Adams is bound to look better. But MADE OF HONOR falls on your shoulders. You play a millionaire playboy, who can get any and every hot chick he wants; you wear great clothes; you go around with two- or three-day stubble and immaculately unkempt hair; your teeth are straight and relatively white; and every woman seems to swoon over you (I'm talking about Dempsey, now, not his character). But if you think for one second that what you do in this movie is acting, please think again. What you do in Made of Honor is not acting; it's posing. You see, I remember you when you were actually kind of cool to watch perform, back in your CANT'T BUY ME LOVE/IN THE MOOD/LOVERBOY/SOME GIRLS era. Sure, you were still part of the "Teen Beat" pinup crowd, but you were amusing. You were no John Cusack, but you were 10 times the actor that either Corey ever was. Now you pose for photo spreads in "T.V. Guide" and "GQ", and you've forgotten how to act. I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy," and maybe if I did, my idea of you would be different, but I don't think so. Let me just end by saying that films like MADE OF HONOR in no way challenge you as an actor, and certainly don't challenge us as an audience. Giving your fans exactly what they want is an absolute guarantee that they will forget that you can be spontaneous and defy expectations.

So what do I think of this movie beyond Dempsey's sleepwalking performance? Well, Monaghan is wasted here as Hannah. She can be compelling, as she was in films like NORTH COUNTRY and GONE BABY GONE, but she's just another pretty face here. I'm glad to see Kevin McKidd ("Rome"; "Journeyman"; and allegedly the title character in the upcoming THOR movie) do something a little lighter, but his role as Hannah's Scottish fiancée is so lifeless that I just watched him spend all his screentime looking incredibly awkward and stiff (matching my own mood while watching the movie). Because I don't feel much like analyzing this film any more than I have to, I'll lay all the blame for this miserable bit of predictable drivel at the feet of director Paul Weiland (veteran director of many a "Mr. Bean" episode, as well as CITY SLICKERS II), who knows how to deliver the broad comedy goods and doesn't waste a second of precious time developing characters that act like real human beings. Tom spends most of the film fretting over whether he should tell Hannah how he really feels about her, instead of just taking her aside and saying, "I love you; don't marry this Scottish douche." But if that ever actually happened in any romantic-comedy, the world would stop revolving and we wouldn't have priceless (meaning worthless) gems like this one to endure for 100-plus minutes. This movie sucks whale nuts.

Capone