What’s Your Number? Movie Review
I guess my number is 2 (black holes).
First off, let me curse Regal Jack London Theater to the very bowels of Hell for being sold out on Dream House, forcing me to watch this chick flick.
Anyway, this movie is yet another female-centric R rated comedies that wants to make women talking about their vaginas a subject of humor. Unfortunately, Bridesmaids already did that this year and, more importantly, did it competently. I say female-centric because it features a female protagonist who says a lot of raunchy things, but in all honesty if I were a woman I would be pissed off at such a passive doormat being a main character in this film She takes no action or charge without help from her friends, gets regularly treated horribly by the men in her life and never speaks out against them, and can’t even accomplish her stupid goal without enlisting the aid of the man across the hall.
The movie starts off with Ally Darling (Anna Faris-Scary Movie 2 and 4, Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, something called House Bunny) getting dumped by her lame vegetarian bike guy boyfriend, who leaves her with a line that any self respecting woman would have punched him in the balls for but in another womens lib inhibiting move she takes with a smile (Vegetarian image from the novelty t shirt category). She gets fired later that morning and on the train ride home discovers in a women’s magazine that the national average number of sex partners for women is 10.5, and any woman who sleeps with more than 20 is not likely to ever get married (fortunately, if I were a woman I would still have quite a cushion, if you know what I mean). She does some math and discovers that she has just been dumped by number 19. She sets a resolution to not sleep with number 20 until she is sure he is the one, and then proceeds to get drunk off her ass and sleep with the boss who just fired her.
So, with her second virginity plan shot down, she now comes up with the completely ridiculous plan of trying to hook up with one of her ex boyfriends, due to the fact that her sister is getting married to her ex (there is an extensive sub plot surrounding her sisters upcoming wedding. It is actually pretty integral to the story, so I won’t black hole it). In order to track down (stalk) her ex’s she recruits her across the hall neighbor Colin Shea (Chris Evans – Captain America, Fantastic Four. Actually quite a good filmography from a nerd perspective), who is a sleazy womanizer who seduces a different girl each night and then needs Ally’s help trying to get rid of her, or at least Ally’s apartment to hide out in until they figure out how they have just been used and leave. Anyway, unfunny romantic comedy hijinks ensues. Colin manages to track down a series of men who are all, for one reason or another, inappropriate. Naturally romance ensues between the woman who has sworn celibacy and the man who plans to sleep with every woman in the greater Boston area. The romance has all the chemistry of mixing green food coloring into beer to make St. Paddy’s Day beverages. The plot plods towards the painfully predictable and totally expected ending.
The stars. Acting was decent. You do tend to believe the characters. One star. Anna Faris is cute if you are into blondes, and whoever they got to be her body double in the extremely brief and non-revealing nude (nud-ish) scenes was pretty hot. One star. Decent supporting characters, including her mother (Blythe Danner), sister (Ari Graynor), the bridesmaids, and the assorted men. One star. Dialog was decent. One star. A few funny moments. One star. It’s nice to see a movie shot in Boston, as opposed to LA or NYC. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Predictable with a capital P. I’ve had more surprising endings from kids singing the A-B-C song. One black hole. The two main characters, Ally and Colin, are both in their own way so unlikeable that by the end of the movie I hated not only them but everyone in the city of Boston (sorry if you live there. Nothing personal). She’s a whiny passive aggressive loser and he’s a sleazy aggressive loser. One black hole. Anna Faris may be funny, but she has a voice that could cut glass. If you loaded 6-9 cats into a cement mixer and turned it on you might approximate the sound. One black hole. Shockingly few funny moments in a so-called comedy, and most of them were one the basest level. One black hole. Ally’s father was the only supporting character that felt fake and out of place. One black hole. I’m going to put this out as bluntly as I can: if you are going to have a Rated R movie and it’s not for violence, for the love of all that is good include a couple decent nude scenes. The ones in this movie were fleeting and mostly covered. One black hole. The romance felt forced and lacked chemistry. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
So a total of 2 black holes, and hence the subtitle for this movie (my real number is not two. Not a ton more than that, but not two). Meh. If you are looking for something cute that you won’t have to use your brain a lot for, go for it. I can actually recommend this as a date movie, in that if she starts thinking about her number she might have to decide you are the one. On the other hand, if you haven’t yet slept with your date this may well backfire on you when she decides you aren’t worth adding to her score, so tread carefully.
Short review, but honestly not a lot of meat for me to chew on here. Thanks for reading. Still more to see this week, but I might just do another Star Trek retrospective tomorrow, or maybe think of something new. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
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