These early scenes of New York are filmed with great imagination and ingenuity. One is a marvelous abstraction of Sam painting his wall white in front of a flickering video image that comes to vivid life in sections as he paints. It's a surreal wonder of a sight. Bursting into the miserable condemned building with a duffel of techie stuff, Maggie stands there, hands on hips, a spiky biker in black helmet and jumpsuit. She is the restaurateur's ex-fiance, and she has come equipped to add the soundtrack to Sam's video.
Revenge is a sticky premise for a romantic comedy.
As the director tries to disguise his hapless hypothesis by spinning into slapstick, we endure a costumed monkey, water pistols, and an accident that breaks both arms of one principal, leaving him to play his role in a body cast. After a while, the jokes begin to sound like darts bouncing off steel. Meg Ryan tries to save the movie by making Maggie a quick- witted cynic, and she nearly succeeds on nerve alone. Gorgeous in goggles and a feather boa, or in red velvet topped by a black turban, she is an outrageous, wisecracking eccentric, but she can't carry the film. The talented Matthew Broderick, fine early on as the desperately earnest guy who is left behind, is woefully miscast when he becomes the romantic lead.