Started Off Great, Then Became Like The Rest Of Today's Lame Comedies

Rating: 3/10 (2 February 2008)

This started off promising with a very good first 40 minutes, then slid downhill fast with all the typical modern-day film clichés you hear in a romance-comedy. You get the customary excused promiscuous behavior and overdone sex jokes, excessive profanity and wrong intentions with the male always at fault. (It's never the female in the "politically correct" world of entertainment.)
Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts obviously make an attractive couple. Grant is a likable guy in most of his movies, not just some "pretty boy" because guys like him, too. The only complaint I have with his characters - as he does in this film, too - is his overly self-effacing attitude where he's always apologizing for living, practically, to his female counterpart. Hugh - speak up and be a man! Stop sounding like a stuttering wimp!
I'm a romantic guy, but romantic comedies are so lame most of the time. How two people get together usually is so ludicrous, so unrealistic it gets downright insulting. Modern-day films like "Sleepless in Seattle" make me puke, as do classic films labeled "screwball comedies." I actually thought - for the first 40 minutes - this film might be different. It wasn't. You get the normal "formula" and "contrived" story, even though it reeks of charm. However, enough is enough.
Grant ("William Thacker") and Roberts ("Anna Scott") got all the acting publicity for this film but the colorful supporting characters were more fun to watch than the two stars.
Do you think it is possible for some filmmaker to make an intelligent romantic comedy, and one that isn't rated PG-13? I hope so.