Bad fortune

>> Jessica Alba’s charms can’t redeem
the unfunny Good Luck Chuck

by MALCOLM FRASER

Earlier this year, when Dane Cook’s name appeared above the title of Mr. Brooks, I was like, “Whoa, who is this guy, and how did he get such a good agent?” Then when anti-comedian Zach Galifianakis rained damnation upon Cook onstage at this year’s Just for Laughs, I was intrigued at what could provoke such hostility. After having seen Cook’s comedic vehicle Good Luck Chuck, I still don’t understand the star power, but the damnation makes a whole lot more sense.

Cook plays Charlie, an affable dentist with a unique set of romantic troubles. The film begins in his pre-teen years, when a basement game of spin the bottle consigns him to a closet with a deranged goth chick. After he rebuffs her sexual advances in a highly questionable scene that pedophiles will enjoy, she puts a curse on him that every woman he’s with will use him as a springboard to her soulmate. Fast forward to his adulthood, and he finds himself in just this predicament; his exes keep marrying off, to the point where his status as a “good luck charm” makes him a hot commodity among single women. When he meets Cam (Jessica Alba), a preternaturally clumsy penguin specialist at a marine park, he becomes convinced that she’s the one for him and desperately tries to break the curse.

Alba almost, but not quite, saves the movie. Previously known for looking cute, here she endears herself with charm and klutzy physical comedy. If only the same could be said for Cook, who’s thoroughly unlikeable and unfunny from start to finish—a deadly recipe in a romantic comedy.

In fact, to use the term “romantic comedy” is misleading, since it implies a kind of benign date movie. This is aimed squarely at the adolescent male mentality, with boner and fat jokes aplenty and a plethora of naked breasts, the likes of which haven’t been seen in a non-porn movie since the ’80s. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the humour here is nasty and misogynist, devoid of either smart subversion or heart. If nothing else, Cook and director Mark Helfrich have created a strong contender for worst movie of 2007.

Good Luck Chuck opens
this Friday, Sept. 21

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