Short Rants on The Ugly Truth

Robert Luketic is not a household name, but he'll always have a special place in my heart for crafting what I think are two of the best light comedies of the decade: Legally Blonde and Monster in Law. So when I heard he was returning to the genre with The Ugly Truth after the dismally inept blackjack drama 21, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit excited. Add in Katherine Heigl, who has been growing on me since 27 Dresses I'm not, the walking sex that is Gerard Butler and the fact that the film is dirty enough to warrant an R-rating and you have me even more interested. So what in the hell happened? saying it was as big of a disaster as Bride Wars (very few rom-coms can match the atrociousness of that one), but it failed to even meet 27 Dresses's mediocre heights. I enjoyed the rauchiness and felt that it was a nice change of pace to the usual overly cutesy nature of the genre, but underneath the dick jokes (which everyone loves and don't you deny it), nothing about The Ugly Truth was funny. Long stretches would go by and I would just sit there waiting for something amusing to happen. I think I laughed more during the last ten minutes of Obsessed than I did throughout this one. I think one it's major problems was that there weren't any interesting supporting characters, no Ruby's or Paulette's on the sidelines waiting to get laughs from any line thrown their way. It certainly would have distracted from the fact that Katherine Heigl is basically repeating the same control freak bitch act she's done in her past two films and it is starting to wear thin or the whole "men are from Mars, women are from Venus but they really are similar and, golly gee, can get along with each other" plot is just the same tired rom-com formula in jazzy new dressings. I certainly don't expect to be truly wowed by a movie like this, but is it really too much to ask for something more? Or, you know, actually comedy? C-

EDIT: I forgot to mention something else that irked me with not only The Ugly Truth, but with a lot of movies of late: terrible soundtrack choices. This film opens up with Katy Perry's "Hot 'N Cold" which would be fine if it, I don't know, related to the film somehow other than the fact that it's something people will recognize and start grooving to. I just wish that whoever was picking the music in these films would be a little more creative and search for stuff that made sense for that particular film, not something that can be interchangeable with ten other movies (like Flo Rida's "Right Round" which plays in the end credits of bothThe Ugly Truth and The Hangover).