This film certainly takes the cake for worst title of 2007. No guy would be caught dead buying tickets to see or renting a movie called P.S. I Love You. It is, however, clearly your typical chick flick. You’ve got an American girl Holly (Hillary Swank) who meets an Irish guy Gerry (Gerard Butler). Gerry’s got a cool accent, sings in a pub, drinks Guinness. In other words, in chick flick land, he’s Irish. Holly is fidgety, awkward, and just oh so cute and American. As the film opens they seem to be experiencing a bad case of the 7-year-itch. They get in a big fight about their future and then he charms her and they make up. If you’re able to stomach the initial few minutes, then you might actually like this movie.

The film then skips ahead a bit to where Gerry has just died due to a brain tumor. Holly understandably feels sad and being the jolly Irish man that he is, Gerry has concocted a way of keeping in touch with her after his death via letters in girly handwriting. Hence, P.S. I Love You. Get it, he’s dead, but he still loves her. Amazing stuff indeed.

If you look closely at the actor’s faces during the course of the film, you can see that they know this movie stinks. Hillary Swank is horribly miscast. She’s trying to re-live her 90210 days and was perhaps afraid of being typecast after movies like Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby.

Harry Connick Jr., apparently out of his singing gig because of Michael Buble, tries to play a quirky bartender, but it just ain’t happening. Holly’s ridiculously annoying friends are played by Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow plays a gold digger who justifies her gold digging based on some kind of warped feminist shenanigans.

Even as chick flicks go, I would urge everyone to avoid P.S. I Love You.

P.S. This movie is awful.

On the one hand, I had to see this movie to check out Jon Heder’s Napoleon Dynamite follow-up. |’m also a huge fan of Mark Ruffalo’s work in You Can Count on Me. Just Like Heaven’s premise, however, a leap of faith romantic comedy, and a Reese Witherspoon lead were major drawbacks.

Witherspoon plays overworked, no life doctor Elizabeth Masterson. Things are looking up though, as she’s just been given a promotion and becayse her sister has set her up on a promising blind date. But then, well, she gets hit by a truck and ends up in a coma. Bummer.

Enter Ruffalo’s David, a gloomy young guy who seems to have a lot of money but still likes to drink beer out of a can. When he’s not moping about, he ends up being confronted by a ghost version of Elizabeth. It turns out, he ended up in Elizabeth’s apartment. She hasn’t quite realized that in reality she’s bed-ridden in comaland, and she’s peeved by this mega bachelor in her her apartment.

David and Elizabeth hit it off in an oddball way and the movie develops into a romance of sorts, which probably looked mighty fine on paper. It does wear thin through the course of the film and towards the end the cheese factor becomes quite large. I could almost see Ruffalo cringing in certain scenes.

Ruffalo and Witherspoon are an odd pairing, sort of like the high school cheerleader and the drama club wallflower. To their credit, they manage to remain watchable and more or less pull it off. Hader play the comic sidekick in a small role. Napoleon Dynamite fans won’t find much to enjoy here, but Hader is nevertheless pretty good.

Fans of romantic dramedies won’t be disappointed with Just Like Heaven and it even has some appeal to guys. All in all, Just Like Heaven is just like David’s cheap beer — it goes down easy and is quickly forgotten.

Buy Just Like Heaven (Widescreen Edition) from Amazon.

The latest pairing of the Farrelly Brothers and Ben Stiller is a loose remake of a 1972 film of the same name — a tale of a honeymoon gone very wrong. In the Farrelly version we have Eddie, played by Stiller, a 40-year-old catching a bunch of slack from his father and best friend because he blew his one big chance at marriage and isn’t getting any younger. Eddie is certainly a bit timid, but it doesn’t help that his dad (played by Stiller’s real father) is somewhat of an old perv and his best friend is a bit of an emasculated married hack. This is the Farrelly brothers, so don’t expect a ton of depth.

Eddie does, however, have what appears to be a stroke of luck. By chance one day, he helps a woman who’s just been robbed. Obviously, this woman, Lila, played by Malin Akerman, turns out be Eddie’s love interest. What follows is a montage of scenes demonstrating the pair’s chemistry and their home town, San Francisco. Hats off, as the scene is pretty funny and, hot damn does SF look good.

What follows is a rushed-into marriage and a honeymoon in Cabo. This is where the film really starts going for big laughs, including the Farrelly’s trademark high cringe factor. Lila turns out to be quite a bit different than the woman Eddie thought she was, resulting in a number of really funny scenes. To make matters worse, Eddie stumbles upon Miranda (Michelle Monaghan) in Cabo, a woman who seems to have all the qualities which Lila lacks. Through a number of misunderstandings, Lila doesn’t realize that Eddie is on his honeymoon and the two of them really hit it off.

Up until the film’s final act, I was honestly surprised at how worthy this film was. Until then, the film stays funny without reducing itself to slapstick nonsense. Ben Stiller doesn’t flex any acting muscle here, but he really doesn’t need to for this fare. He sort of plays a combination of his characters in Along Came Polly and There’s Something About Mary. Stiller is an international star for a reason, and he’s just good at being Stiller. In that sense, he doesn’t disappoint here.

The leading ladies are also both good. Akerman is hilarious and scary and Monaghan, who has grown on me a ton since Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, is truly adorable. They don’t write in a lot of laughs for her part, but she plays very well alongside Stiller.

If it weren’t for a weak last act and a few overdone Farrellyisms, I would call this a pretty good film. If you like other Farrelly stuff and are into Stiller, you will be entertained. All in all, a decent slapstick flick.

Buy The Heartbreak Kid (Widescreen Edition) from Amazon.