Sunday, March 21, 2010

“She’s Out of My League” – Yeah, she is.

Two words: Alice Eve. Remember them. She’s the one who is out of your league…and my league. In fact, her league basically consists of herself, Hugh Jackman, and Naomi Watts. Do you know what these three people have in common? That’s right – they are all ridiculously good looking and they are all Australian. I don’t know about you, but for me, there is nothing sexier than an Australian accent. I don’t know what the Aussies’ secret is for making these people, but for the sake of the human race, please don’t stop. Why am I babbling on about hot Australians? I’m upset that they forced Alice Eve to hide her accent and speak like an American. Other than that, I’m still just trying to remember anything about the movie other than her.

Okay, that’s not completely true. I was paying attention to more than just her, though she was the main attraction. The movie is exactly what you think from the title. A nerdy kid miraculously gets to date the hot girl. This isn’t like “Can’t Buy Me Love,” where a dorky Patrick Dempsey pays a cheerleader to be his girlfriend. In “She’s Out of My League,” Molly takes an interest in Kirk for no other reason than she doesn’t want to date jackasses any more. Kirk works as a TSA agent at the Pittsburgh airport and defends Molly when his boss attempts to molest her at the security checkpoint. On the plane, she realizes she forgot her phone and Kirk finds it when she calls it. She invites him to a party to return the phone at which point the film becomes a series of scenes alternating between Molly and Kirk’s dates and Kirk’s friends trying to figure out how the universe became so skewed.

The plot is exactly what you expect from a romantic comedy. You know the first part of the movie is the couple getting closer, the middle part has them spending the night together, and the end has a dumb fight followed by forgiveness and happily ever after. Even though we know this is the movie, we watch to see what wrinkles get put into the story. Other than the premise, this film gives us an extremely dysfunctional family, an ejaculation scene, and two fights rather one (which is also basically the plot of “There’s Something About Mary”).

The family has the typical dynamic where Kirk gets picked on by his brother and is embarrassed by his parents, mostly because they are some form of white trash. The twist is that they have practically adopted his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, to the extent of them hanging out with them all the time and even going to travel with them on a family vacation. This is the least entertaining part of the film and is the reason I hate films like “Meet the Parents” and “Anger Management.” I can’t stand watching the main character get shit on while doing nothing to defend himself. By the time he does tell them off, I’m usually so annoyed and frustrated that I don’t care. Fortunately, this is only a minor part of the film, so it doesn’t completely ruin the movie.

The other twist is the extra quarrel between the love interests, which also happens to be the ejaculation scene. Molly is lighting Kirk up like a Roman candle, when her parents knock on the door. She jumps up to answer and Kirk is left trying to figure out how to hide the oyster (his words and probably the funniest line of the movie) he just made in his pants. As he is being introduced to Molly’s parents, her dog starts licking his crotch and he makes a quick exit as they watch in confusion. While this scene may sound kind of funny on the surface, I can assure you it’s mostly uncomfortable, mixed with a little disgust. My big problem with this scene is that there is no way that Molly didn’t know he blew his wad, not to mention she probably would have had some evidence on her as well. Considering we find out Molly lies to her parents about her life, this scene would have played out much better and funnier if she had tried to help Kirk get through it. Instead, like his premature ejaculation, this scene feels like the main fight you always expect in these movies, but came much too early.

Besides those things, the film simply tries to have too much. There are too many characters that are underused or pointless, including Molly’s best friend. She’s bitchy for no reason and doesn’t even provide any comedy. There are subplots that don’t really tie to the story and are never really resolved. One example is Molly’s ex-boyfriend, who seems like he’s going to try to win her back, but ends up just stepping aside. He doesn’t even try to sabotage Kirk to split them up. He’s basically in the film to provide at least one decent looking male character in order to offset the unattractiveness of Kirk and his buddies. To round things off, the second fight scene is as unnecessary as those characters. They strip down to their underwear, but start arguing, and he walks out. Not only is the fight pointless, but if it were me in that room, I wouldn’t have stopped if a truck hit me.

Even with all of these flaws, the film is still fairly entertaining. Kirk and Molly are fun to watch and you really want them to end up together in the end. The comedy is better than what we’ve been subjected to recently (I’m talking to you Judd Apatow) and the movie flows along without making you check your watch. Of course, if you’re male, there was no way you were going to risk missing even a moment of Alice Eve for something as trivial as time.

Rating: Women should ask for five dollars back. Men should ask when the next show time is.

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