“A Lot Like Love” is a lot like a real movie, except for the implausible script, the tepid jokes and the uninspired acting.
It’s a lot like a romantic comedy, except that it’s not remotely romantic or even mildly funny.
Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet spend much of the movie seeking laughs by sticking items up their nostrils: sunglasses, chopsticks, soda straws. Sadly, nothing explosive.
All important plot points are escorted by loud pop songs in case you missed their potential significance, making “A Lot Like Love’ less like a whole movie and a lot like a soundtrack with a slide show.
The lame friends-can’t-be-lovers premise of “A Lot Like Love’ is meant to produce a “When Harry Met Sally’ for a new generation. But since writer Colin Patrick Lynch never gives us a reason these two stars can’t stay together, Kutcher and Peet spend the movie crinkling their cute noses and intentionally misunderstanding each other’s semi-literate line readings. What we get is a screwball romance for morons, or “When Dumb Met Dumber.’
The characters meet-cute on a post-graduation trip to New York. For Peet’s allegedly Goth-rock character, edgy means jumping Kutcher in an airplane bathroom, then mocking him relentlessly afterward. The romance is dating by montage: Montage of New York City, montage of New Year’s Eve, montage of awkward phone calls, montage of Kutcher’s unconvincing career as a workaholic Internet entrepreneur.
The movie trick is that the couple can’t possibly stay together because they like each other. Insurmountable plot problems threaten their romance – he lives in San Francisco, she in Los Angeles, as if only Amtrak served the two.
Kutcher glides through the movie, as is his habit, with the look of an alien alternately amused and bemused by this strange humanoid planet he’s visiting. In last year’s “The Butterfly Effect,’ Kutcher’s character traveled back in time and grew dumber on each trip. Here, Kutcher’s character travels forward in time yet looks younger. The problem with Kutcher is not that Demi Moore is dating a younger man, it’s that their time-consuming romance is taking him away from the high-school acting classes he really can’t afford to miss.
Romantic comedies are about escapism, of course, but “A Lot Like Love’ gets so many things jarringly wrong that there is nowhere to hide.
Kutcher is supplied a brother who is deaf, only because it makes for a few cute misunderstandings. As a struggling artist, Peet somehow lives in the most desirable courtyard apartment in L.A. She becomes an elite photographer the moment Kutcher leaves her a camera as a gift, yet her gallery photos are straight out of “Tiger Beat.’
All characters drink heavily when they are depressed, and even more heavily when they are elated, with nary a hangover in sight. Oh, to be young and in love, instructed by a personal trainer.
Say something nice? Didn’t I already mention it had a good soundtrack? Don’t push me. I’m this far from seeking an injunction against future DVDs of “That ’70s Show.’
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
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* 1/2
“A Lot Like Love’
PG-13 for language, sexual situations, brief nudity|1 hour, 40 minutes|ROMANTIC COMEDY|Directed by Nigel Cole; written by Colin Patrick Lynch; starring Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet, Kathryn Hahn, Kal Penn and Ali Larter|Opens today at area theaters.
