I'm guessing they learned the ugly truth with the box office receipts

Rating: 2/10 (3 January 2010)

The ugly truth is this movie is enormously unfunny and predictable. The uglier truth is that only a handful of actors, dead or alive can pull off screwball/slapstick humor and Heigl/Butler are not on that list. The ugliest truth is that I appear to be the same man-pig Butler describes in the movie (a trait I despise) as I only watched this movie for Butler.
Now that's out of the way, The Ugly Truth isn't truly the worst movie I've seen, or in 2009 and it wasn't 100% unfunny. I might have laughed two times. Unfortunately, I cringed at almost all the attempts at humor or the blatant crude behavior/talk just to be like the Judd Apatow films. The difference is, Apatow is generally fresh, original, funny and actually contains a story. The Ugly Truth harbors none of these qualities. (In fact, the only similarity was Heigl, who was oodles better in Knocked Up.) We've see it all before. Uptight woman (Heigl) is looking for love, but her standards are too high. Easy-going, smart-alecky and fast talker male – with a past!, (Butler) helps said woman romance her neighbor when, you know he wants, well, it's obvious thatreally? Is this a spoiler? Roxanne anyone? Sure it mimics a hundred or more movies, plots, stories and honestly, that wouldn't be a problem if it was well executed or at least you cared about the characters. Heck, maybe you could throw in a surprise or two. Not one person did I give a second thought to, not one scene in this movie wasn't foretold; even the poster gives it away. It makes you wonder why they even tried.
Butler was the only saving grace. He was funny once or twice – he did have some quick moments, and it was nice to see a male be so unashamedly open and honest about what (majority of) men want. I'm sure a lot of what he was saying is true, but he blanketed the entire male population, whereas there are gay males out there who don't really care that much about breasts. (I'm sure some do, but you get my point.) And speaking of which, I guess his character and/or this movie could be described as homophobic, if I cared enough. I mean, the character is really a low-life himself, so I don't give him enough credit to worry about his anti-gay remarks.
As for Heigl's character, she was so predictable, literally boring and so clichéd I barely could watch her on the screen. And the secondary characters? Oh mythe neighbor looked like he belonged on Desperate Housewives, although since he's so dull, I'm sure one of them would kill him off within the first few episodes. The newscaster "hot-n-heavy" older couple was so incredibly over-the-top and unfunny, they were hard to look at. What were the writers thinking? That their problems are so hard to find in their marriage that TV guy's man/butch host Butler can bring them together on the air live, have them perform sexual acts in front of the audience and BOW! we'd like them or even laugh along? I'm absolutely no prude, so when it came to them making me feel uncomfortable, it wasn't about the sexual nature; it was about how incredibly bad their attempts at humor were and how far they fell. They belonged on the Mary Tyler Moore show or any 1970s sitcom – not in modern comedies.
I love hearing the phrase: "If you see one movie this year" or "one comedy" For this movie, you're best off if you have never, ever, in your entire life, or past life, seen a movie. Then you might enjoy it as something fresh, original, funny and surprising. However, if you've seen more than one comedy, or dramedy, then skip this one. It's just too painful to watch and I'm only guessing here: comedies aren't meant to be painful.