Crisp dialogue makes this RomCom quite enjoyable but...

Rating: 5/10 (7 January 2014)

... Friends with Benefits can't run fast enough into the very clichés it wants to make fun of. It is like a producer is steering the project into the tightly packaged product zone while he had writers with more creativity than was allowed/needed.
The crisp dialogue is really what makes the movie stand out IMO since I would not say that the chemistry between Milla Kunis and Justin Timberlake is more than adequate. Actually the setback of this crisp dialogue is the fast delivery and the impression of having fast delivery puppets rather than fine characters. That is a directorial issue: how to keep a fine comedic pace without letting down the characters in stand-up gig mode? I appreciated the script was somewhat original in the background but the LA sequence, which should have been the high point, is a ridiculous let down full of stock characters/situations and comedic action bogged down in the middle. From there ending is painfully dragging its feet.
Not bad, has fine creative inroads, but never quite makes it above the level of a very conservatively clichéd RomCom.