There was a 15 page paper on my plate last weekend. Friday after work I went home and worked on it for 3 hours and knew that the rest of the weekend was going to be that paper and work. I had to get out of the house, but was not going to drive out to Natomas, which meant Davis was my only destination. I had two options: watch Star Trek for a fourth time or this movie. Does that properly qualify why I would watch this thing? No? Okay, how about Jennifer Garner has the most amazing dimples in the history of the world? Is that good enough?
Following the plot of Charles Dickens' amazing A Christmas Carol, we meet Connor Mead(Matthew McConaughey, MM), a famous photographer who is a prick to women, yet they still sleep with him. His newest prey, the super sexy Christina Millian actually watches him break up with 3 women via conference call and still strips down for him, much to this audience member's delight. That girl is smoking! Connor rushes out when he realizes he is going to be late for his brother's wedding rehearsal. The Brother, Paul(Breckin Meyer) is marrying Sandra(The Shrill but FINE Lacey Charbet). Sandra's sister, Jenny(Jennifer Garner) was Connor's first and only love, but she was hurt badly by him. The first night Connor gets far too drunk because he hates marriage and he is visited by the ghost of his womanizing uncle, Wayne(Michael Douglass)and Wayne tells Connor that is going to be visited by 3 ghosts who will show him the error of his ways. The first ghost(Emma Stone) shows us and him the past that turned Connor into a jerk. His parents died and Wayne raised him and Wayne's screwed up views on women turned Connor into a jerk. The present shows everyone bagging on Connor except for Paul and the future shows Connor that Paul ended up alone and that Paul was the only one at Connor's funeral. Pretty standard stuff.
The writers of this film did a great thing by naming the lead Connor Mead because it might be the biggest douche bag name ever, and MM is the perfect douche bag actor. He is actually funnier as the douche bag than the foil to all of the goings on. It is as if MM has been waiting his whole career to play a certified douche bag. Congrats dude, you did it. The big problem with this movie is that is counts on us hating Connor, but wanting to like him. Unfortunately I never cared about him. Jenny meets a guy who is a doctor, is nice, is a certified masseuse, knows how to dance and loves animals and kids. He is the guy I care about, but early on we know that the jerk will reform and the girl will get him. I supposed to ever care about a guy who has bed hundreds of women for one night stands? Why? What is the point? Is it supposed to show me that everyone can change? Well, that is all fine and good, but does that forgive every girl he had hurt up until that moment? Where is his comeuppance? Where is the justice in all of this? Connor gets to sex up hundreds of hot, young and horny girls and in the end he gets to settle down with Jennifer Garner and those dimples. What exactly is the lesson here?
It is a comedy, so it should be funny and it has moments of hilarity, almost all happen when Emma Stone is on screen. Playing a 15 or 16 year old girl from the 1980s who was Connor's first sex partner, Stone is funny, energetic and appears to understand she is slumming it in this movie. Her facial expressions and body language give most of the comedy because the script is sure not going to give us any. I can only imagine the pain Michael Douglass felt when he was forced to say the following "Tonight, you are going to feel things you have never felt before. Things like feelings." WHAT???? Come again? Then there is the moment when it starts raining over Connor and Douglass has to proclaim "This is not rain, but all of the tears all those girls have cried over you."
The movie treats girls as vacant and vapid, except for Jenny. There is never a moment when we see Connor even sweet talking the girls to make them fall in love with Connor. The movie has decided that treating a girl like crap is not the way to have sex with them only, it is the way to make girls fall madly in love with you after only a few days. I would think it would take more than a few days of Connor treating a girl like crap for her to fall in love, but not in this movie. In this movie every girl is so low on self esteem they have to be in love to be happy and then they all have to cry thousands of tears over a guy they screwed one time. COMPLETE NONSENSE! How did any actress even agree to be in such a misogynistic movie? I do not claim to understand women, but I know a lot of pretty intelligent women and this movie believes those kinds of girls do not exist. Good job movie.
MM and Jennifer Garner have a nice chemistry, but Garner is pretty wasted in the thankless role of knowing the real Connor Mead. See, it isn't Connor's fault he has been an asshole for 20 years. He did not mean to walk out on Jenny the moment he had sex with her. He is just misunderstood. Don't worry, for reasons beyond my understanding, he has been deemed special enough to see how his life will turn out if he doesn't stop sleeping with hundreds of girls. Oh woe is Connor Mead!
I can't even go on, I am so annoyed.
Final Grade- D. It is only saved from an F by Emma Stone...and Jennifer Garner's dimples.
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