Film is a schizophrenic hodge-podge of elements from chick flick sentimentality and a frat beer drinking party sideshow. The attempt to mix the two is handled with little cohesion, and never seals the deal for either audience (and certainly falls short of appealing to both, which is what it seems to want).
We meet a grieving woman (Jennifer Garner) who was engaged, but her fiancé dies just before the wedding. That would seem to be an emotional story of healing and moving on, right? Wrong. At the funeral, we meet his idiot friends (Kevin Smith and two other jokers, all who turn in rotten performances). What one of them is doing at the funeral home is appalling; to put it bluntly, the guy is a jerk. OK, so it's supposed to be a sophomoric comedy? Wrong again.
Grit your teeth, there's still more clichéd characters coming. Enter the blonde bimbo, and her weird kid. A lot of the plot revolves around these two. She mumbles about yoga; the kid just stands around robotically throwing CD's on the floor. Real cute; I wanted to throw a ten ton crate of CD's on his head. Anyway, these two have a secret that drives the plot along. Presence of kid = suspicion. If you catch my drift.
People do stuff that doesn't add up. There's a romance that has as much chemistry as two patches of dead seaweed. The attraction makes no sense, either, in light of earlier events in the story. Most characters suddenly change in odd ways, rather than evolve logically. Random sight gags evoke no laughs. The kid continues to be obnoxious.
Nobody in the cast except for Garner makes any effort; they just don't seem to care. Even Ben-Jen's work here is not quite up to par, in light of her proved potential in other roles.
The ending is ridiculous (and about as likely as the odds of winning a 50 million dollar lottery). It's like somebody tagged it on, because they didn't know how to close out the thing. The movie never does figure out which genre(s) it wants to be, either.
We meet a grieving woman (Jennifer Garner) who was engaged, but her fiancé dies just before the wedding. That would seem to be an emotional story of healing and moving on, right? Wrong. At the funeral, we meet his idiot friends (Kevin Smith and two other jokers, all who turn in rotten performances). What one of them is doing at the funeral home is appalling; to put it bluntly, the guy is a jerk. OK, so it's supposed to be a sophomoric comedy? Wrong again.
Grit your teeth, there's still more clichéd characters coming. Enter the blonde bimbo, and her weird kid. A lot of the plot revolves around these two. She mumbles about yoga; the kid just stands around robotically throwing CD's on the floor. Real cute; I wanted to throw a ten ton crate of CD's on his head. Anyway, these two have a secret that drives the plot along. Presence of kid = suspicion. If you catch my drift.
People do stuff that doesn't add up. There's a romance that has as much chemistry as two patches of dead seaweed. The attraction makes no sense, either, in light of earlier events in the story. Most characters suddenly change in odd ways, rather than evolve logically. Random sight gags evoke no laughs. The kid continues to be obnoxious.
Nobody in the cast except for Garner makes any effort; they just don't seem to care. Even Ben-Jen's work here is not quite up to par, in light of her proved potential in other roles.
The ending is ridiculous (and about as likely as the odds of winning a 50 million dollar lottery). It's like somebody tagged it on, because they didn't know how to close out the thing. The movie never does figure out which genre(s) it wants to be, either.