As I walked out of the movie theater, I noticed an odd hush had fallen over the city. There was not a soul to be seen in the normally crowded streets of Boston. A solitary police car sounded in the distance. The world was illuminated only by the tungsten-red street lights.
“This is it,” I thought to myself. “I’ve just experienced the apocalypse.” And its name was Dane Cook.
To call Cook’s latest foray into the world of cinema “bad” would be a gross misrepresentation. It would imply that it’s one of those movies. “Oh,” you’d say. “I’m sure it’d still be fun to watch it once. Even if it is bad.”
This, my friends, is not one of those movies. No, Good Luck Chuck will leave you sick to your stomach. And you’ll feel worse when you realize the money you just wasted will line the pockets of the people responsible for such an atrocity.
Let me explain. The story seems simple enough. Charlie Logan (Cook) has a curse: Any time he sleeps with a woman, she inevitably marries the next man she dates. You can fill in the rest. Charlie sleeps with a lot of random women using him to find the perfect man. But then, he falls in love with Cam (Jessica Alba), and suddenly, he wants more. She can’t date another person or else! Et cetera, et cetera.
But the plot isn’t the reason for making a movie like this. It’s for what’s in between. Well, *spoiler alert*, here’s a glimpse at what’s in between:
Dane Cook completely naked.
Dane Cook having graphic sex with a number of not very attractive women (none of whom is Alba, in case you’re wondering).
Nothing particularly funny.
Charlie trying to break the curse by sleeping with the most offensive, disgusting woman on the planet.
The movie makes a poor attempt at slapstick humor, particularly with the klutzy Cam, but fails to produce a trace of actual laughter. Then, to win over the rest of us, it attempts sentimentality, like in the scene where Charlie agrees to sleep with his obese secretary to help her find love. Awww.
Ok, so maybe Good Luck Chuck is not the apocalyptic nightmare I made it out to be. But for a comedian who made it big telling jokes about the Kool-Aid man, you have to wonder how well Cook really knows his audience, and why he would go to such lengths to pain us. His grotesque gyrating pushes away fans that once identified with his unrepressed childishness.
Rating: Negative 1 stars.
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