OLESYA SALNIKOVA
A&E Assistant
Most people don’t ever stop to think about the effects a simple game of spin the bottle can have of their lives. However, in the new release “Good Luck Chuck,” Charlie Kagan, played by Dane Cook (“Employee of the Month”) violates the rules with a gothic voodoo chick, and she will never let him forget.
Apparently, neglecting the rules of this childhood game will give one a hex and 25 years of bad luck in love. And, that is exactly what Charlie Kagan gets after he refuses to stay true to his word, and the game. After growing up and becoming a successful dentist, Charlie is not getting any luckier in love, as one lady after another leaves him for a “Mr. Right.”
Going to an ex’s wedding doesn’t help either, as Charlie discovers that he is a “lucky charm” for every girl he has ever dated. It turns out that his exes all have a trackrecord of getting married to the next man they date.
As more and more women find out about Charlie’s “gift,” he gets knee-deep in a handful of beautiful women who are eager to sleep with him, but not so eager to actually get to know him.
Just as Charlie is about to plunge into a deep chasm of loneliness and despair, he meets penguin-loving Cam, played by Jessica Alba (“Fantastic Four,” “Sin City”). Realizing she is the woman of his dreams, Charlie feels he must go to extremes to keep her from marrying the next guy she meets.
This means spending a deliciously romantic night with an obscenely bloated lady from the pool (the one with the acne on her back), dressing up like a huge, fluffy penguin in front of her coworkers, making hundreds of obnoxious phone calls, and surprising her by waiting for her in her car.
Directed by Mark Helfrich, “Good Luck Chuck” is an offbeat comedy about people’s trials and tribulations with love. As Charlie begins to see that there is more to a relationship than just one night, he becomes distraught with the idea of never finding that one perfect person he is so anxious to find. With laugh-out-loud moments and unexpected new twists, this film is bound to make anyone laugh — at least for a moment.
The beginning of the film proves to be one of the most amusing first 10 minutes of a movie in a long time because of its comic allusion to childish antics with rather dire consequences. Although the audience is hooked in the very first scene, the comedy slowly dwindles into repetition, as the theme of the the charm becomes exhausted.
The film resorts to drastic measures to make people laugh, as Charlie’s attempts to entrap Cam become ridiculous and downright humiliating. As the idea of numerous, maybe hundreds, of one-night stands becomes dull and even unsanitary, the audience has to wonder, how long is this going to last?
The endless parade of beautiful women quickly gets old, as more and more of them step into the film. With so many faces and so little importance to the overall film, the plot begins to drag.
The film dips dangerously into the predictive zone as the sequence of events become elementary when our hero realizes he cannot let his dream girl get away. A typical chick-flick chain of events ensue thereafter.
The evaporating momentum is almost forgotten for moments at a time, as the actors attempt to make the audience roar with laughter throughout the entire length of the film. The dynamics between Cook and Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury), the lustful plastic surgeon and best friend Stu, create some exceptionally funny exchanges.
Alba, with a fresh and quirky personality, is sometimes on and sometimes off, as her accident-prone character gets less and less believable. As one thing goes wrong after another, one has to wonder, can someone be “that” clumsy?
Despite the film’s evident shortcomings, the comedy pulls through with laugh-out-loud humor and outrageously comical escapades.
The moral of the story? Don’t cheat at spin the bottle.
09-27-2007
