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Issue date: 10/2/07 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: IMDB.COM Promotional poster from the movie. [Click to enlarge]

In the past, romantic comedies meshed with raunchy fun have succeeded, like "Knocked Up". The difference between that and "Good Luck Chuck" is that the nasty jokes work for "Knocked Up", but not for this new film directed by Mark Helfrich.

Charlie Logan (Dane Cook) had a hex put on him when he was six. The spell will cause anyone he has sex with to fall in love with the next person she meets. When he meets Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba), he falls in love with her. After Chuck does the nasty with Cam, he does everything he can to make sure the spell doesn't cause her to like someone else. Little does Chuck know that the hex has been broken.

If given the right role, Alba can make good strides to be more than just a sex goddess on screen. Cam is a true klutz, endangering herself in everything she does. Yet despite her lack of grace, she is looking for more than a fling. Alba plays this role fittingly, showing her tender side when need be and more importantly, succeeding in the physical comedy she shows.

Cook, on the other hand, plays Chuck unevenly. Chuck wrestles with possessing a gift that can help a lot of women and simultaneously falling madly in love with Cam. At times, Cook does a good job portraying this image. Other times, he just looks like a creep. Even the most die-hard fans of Cook would have to agree.

When Cook and Alba are on screen together, the chemistry is there. Everything is believable and, better yet, more of the funnier moments involve them both. When they aren't together, most of the jokes fall through. Chuck's best friend Stu (Dan Fogler) comes off as a misogynist pig, an image the director was most likely shooting for, but when those heartfelt buddy moments are supposed to happen, it's hard to take Stu seriously long enough to feel the emotion. Cam and her brother Joe (Lonny Ross) were supposed to show the pros and cons of why she should date Chuck, but that also didn't come across on screen.

Sex is rampant in this film. But then again, it has to be when main plot involves having sex in order for the women to find love next time. There are two ways to show sex, either tasteful or crude. In "Knocked Up", the sex talk was unconventional, yet the way director Judd Apatow showed it felt more comfortable. In "Good Luck Chuck", it was the total opposite. When they were talking about sex, it wasn't funny at all. If anything, it's something 13-year-olds would talk about on the playground during recess or lunch. The only reason why 13-year-old kids can't watch this is because of the amount of female nudity, and most of it was so unnecessary.

The last 20 minutes is formulaic and full of clichés, but that is only to be expected in a romantic comedy. This movie could have been special. It had an outrageous idea, one that could have worked if they had steered the movie in a different direction. This movie had the potential to be on the same level as "Knocked Up", if it had focused more on why Chuck has fallen for Cam or why she might be the one. By falling into the same problem of showing sex as degrading and vulgar, it will fall under the same pretext of a dirty comedy with some romance on the side.

* 1/2 stars (out of ****)

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