all's fair in love and war and torturing movie-goers

Rating: 4/10 (30 May 2003)

the makers of this movie failed to realize a very important element of romantic comedies. the audience has to WANT the two main characters to fall for each other. there wasn't one point in the movie where we wanted andie and ben to actually 'come to their senses' as we're supposed to always do in movies of this type. both are extremely self-involved and don't know anything about caring for another human being. of course in a good movie this leaves plenty of room for heroic changes, but they never made any (at least not before the audience stopped caring). i never got the feeling that ben would sacrifice his really stupid ad pitch (frost yourself?!) or that andie would quit her job or even the story because of how she feels (even though she hated it anyway).
i thought a more interesting love story was the one about andie's co-worker who starts the whole thing off. a movie about a girl who really loves a guy, but does all the wrong things on ACCIDENT would actually be more funny and more touching to watch. i really loved when the boyfriend comes back to her and says his pillow doesn't smell like the perfume she sprayed on it anymore. obviously he HATED when she did it originally, but because she was genuine he wound up missing her. that actress reminds me of someone too-- mary lou retton or something.
anyway, i may be a guy, but i can really love a good romantic comedy. this movie wasn't romantic or funny. people who love romantic comedies should hate this one. if they actually fall for this one, we're gonna get a lot more lame ones down the road.