Cute idea, mediocre execution

Rating: 4/10 (5 August 2006)

This is an odd film. On the one hand, you've gotta like Steve Carrell. He brings a charm to his character, and the part is written well. He's appropriately down about his virginity, but he deals with it. He's naturally p.o.'d when his friends razz him about it, yet mature enough to accept their apology. And the ending is what it should be: Carrell finally finds the right woman when he stops listening to other people's advice and just acts like himself.
On the other hand, a lot of the jokes in this film are really lame. The morning hard-on? Cute but hardly guffaw-inducing. The crabby immigrant who swears a lot? Been done, and the swearing is OVERdone. The dumb friends who give Steven bad advice? Old, old, old -- at least as old as "A Guide for the Married Man" (1967!) and done to death many times since, not only in movies but plenty of TV sitcoms. The boss who secretly yearns for Carrell to be her, ahem, "buddy"? Nothing ever comes of that plot line.
But then this movie had a rough road to hoe. As I said, it's been done over and over ad nauseam, the only real difference is this time it's buddies helping someone lose their virginity, instead of just helping someone get laid. It'd need a ton of wit to overcome a concept this worn out, and that's why I think I was unsatisfied with this film: the jokes were easy and not particularly witty. Some were just odd. For example, when Carrell winds up finally having sex, he sings "Aquarius". I found myself asking, "Why is that supposed to be funny? It just looks strange." I'm guessing very young audiences take the song to be a dorky expression of happiness by a dorky character, but a lot of folks older than Gen X won't make that association. To them it's a cool (if dated) song.
In the end I can't help wondering what better writers would've done with something like this. Hopefully made it into something more than a hybrid cute love story/dumb teen comedy.