Tweet

Why is it that there are some actresses who seem to be in one good movie after another, while there are others who never seem to be in any good movies? I find it that whenever I go to a Naomi Watts movie, the movie usually turns out to be really good. Same for Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz and plenty of others. Monica Bellucci has the knack, too, for appearing in good movies.

But Jessica Alba? She sure can’t pick ‘em these days, can she?

It seems like every movie she has done since Sin City has been a piece of junk. She was in those two terrible Fantastic Four movies, and she was in that terrible Into the Blue movie where she wore a bikini, and now her career has hit a low point with her worst movie yet, the terrible Good Luck Chuck. I used to think Jessica Alba was turning into the Raquel Welch of the 21st century, another babe who wasted her talent and sex appeal on one bikini-bimbo cheesy film role after another. (She never took her clothes off in the movies, either.)

But Raquel had a much better career than this. At least some of her roles were cult classics, and that chick could really sing. And most importantly, she never had to co-star opposite Dane Cook. Like I say, for Jessica Alba this has to be a low point.

The movie is about this guy Chuck who has a hex placed on him when he is ten years old by some creepy girl who got spurned by him. She puts a hex on Chuck, who is cursed for the rest of his life into falling into lots of short-term relationships with hot women. Then as soon as they’ve had sex with him, they dump him and the next man they meet ends up marrying them. Anyway, word gets out that Chuck is a one-way ticket to finding true love, with someone else. So Chuck is drowning in beautiful women looking for quickies. You have to feel sorry for him.

Anyway, Chuck ends up meeting Cam Wexler, the delightfully goofy penguin trainer played by Alba. Basically, Cam is a modern-day female version of Inspector Clouseau, a real klutz. She’s continually bumping into things and tripping over stuff. Anyway, Chuck’s smitten by her, but he has this hex thing going on. And because so many women are chasing after him, Cam has suspicions about him. So there you have the basic conflict of the movie that has to be resolved before Chuck is able to win the girl of his dreams.

The movie that this flick tries to emulate seems to be Wedding Crashers, the R-rated hit movie about these guys who go to weddings to get laid, who eventually discover that it gets old after a while and who yearn for something more meaningful — a real, committed relationship. This movie basically follows the Wedding Crashers formula all the way. You have the naked babes. You have the good-girl who doesn’t get naked (Alba, doing the Rachel McAdams thing). You even have the two horny buddies (Dane Cook as Chuck, and Dan Fogler as his even hornier plastic-surgeon buddy). It’s also the same plot, with the exact same guy-sick-of-getting-laid-and-looking-for-commitment storyline. Only the names have changed to protect the innocent.

Apart from the fact that this Chuck movie is an unoriginal idea that we’ve all seen before, this movie lacks two things that Wedding Crashers had in spades: (a) laughs, and (b) heart.

This movie was a boring waste of time. The Jessica Alba klutz schtick was fun to begin with, but it got old in a hurry. And it’s really too bad, because her character was really the only memorable thing about the movie. Who wouldn’t want this penguin-loving babe as a girlfriend? At least that part was believable, even if the romance felt totally contrived. You got the impression Cam was never really into Chuck, even when she was into Chuck.

Worse than that, this movie was a sleazy waste of time. It seemed like all the women in this movie were made out to be bimbos desperate for husbands. It was also a disgusting waste of time. There was overkill with the nudity and the scatological humor, which wasn’t even funny. It was just tasteless. They had the guys sleeping with really fat, ugly women; it was embarrassing to watch and pathetic.

I mean, they did the scatological thing in Superbad, too, but that was different. It was original, it was funny! They were doing things that had never been seen in movies before, while Good Luck Chuck was rolling out one tired clich© after another! And Superbad was about something, too — it was about these two long time buddies who were being split up in college! It was about the meaning of friendship!! But what the heck was Good Luck Chuck about? Sex!? Babes?! Seems like it. That’s what I mean about this movie lacking a heart.

Mind you, it was sexy at times. There was a scene near the beginning of the movie where Chuck was getting it on at the beach with a topless blonde babe. I loved that scene; I thought Chelan Simmons was really hot. Then there was a scene near the end of the movie where Chuck’s pal falls for a woman with three breasts. That was good for a few laughs. In between, though, this movie was a snoozefest. So it’s not even good enough to be a decent guilty-pleasure flick. There were two quality sexy moments and that was it!

As for Chuck, I thought the guy was a fool. Who wants this clod?! In fact, I was cheering for him NOT to get the girl in this flick, because this guy was such an idiot. I don’t think the reason why women kept on leaving him was because of any hex. I think it was because this guy was a real blockhead! There are scenes in the movie where Chuck basically acts like an idiot in front of Cam and the rest of these women, wearing stupid costumes and taking his pants off in front of people. What self-respecting woman would want to end up with Chuck?! Yecch.

I know everyone is bashing Dane Cook for being in this movie, because he was in the just-as-bad, if not worse, Employee of the Month opposite Jessica Simpson. Now that’s another woman named Jessica who can’t find a good movie to star in to save her life. Personally, I don’t blame Cook’s performance one bit. If you had put Vince Vaughn in the same role, it would have turned out just as badly. Same for Ashton Kutcher, Ben Stiller and all these other dudes. It’s kind of interesting that Stiller has a new movie called The Heartbreak Kid, which everyone is comparing to Good Luck Chuck. I’m sure he’s thrilled about the comparisons, not. Anyway, I think the reason why Dane Cook was so bad in this role is because the role was bad to begin with. Anyone would have looked terrible in the part. Chuck is just a goofball, a total loser.

Jessica Alba ends up a double loser in my book: for winding up stuck with Chuck, and for appearing in this movie in the first place. This is a woman who really needs to take a page out of the Anne Hathaway playbook and find some quality films that she can appear in, fast. She has to quit doing these downmarket modern-day B-movies. These flicks are just killing her. Maybe the hex isn’t on Chuck after all. Maybe it’s on Jessica Alba.

The Upside: If you’re a single guy who likes girls, this movie does have some good naked-babe moments in it for you MAXIM magazine fans out there.

The Downside The whole rest of the movie, especially the scatological stuff. And Chuck is just an idiot.

On the Side: Jessica Alba still makes a great movie girlfriend, and her goofy Cam character has some real personality to her. Too bad this character was wasted on this movie.