When I saw the trailer for Good Luck Chuck, I thought about how limited the premise is. So this guy (our Chuck aka Dr. Charlie Logan, played by fratboy comic Dane Cook) gets this terrible yet convenient curse. Whenever he has sex with a woman, her next date will be her true love. This brings Charlie all the ‘tang one man can ever hope to amass, but he is unhappy, because Charlie is a romantic. When he meets the cutie Cam (go-to movie hottie for hire Jessica Alba), Charlie has to stop himself from having sex with Cam. The idea of a comedy with its humor based entirely on “look how funny it is that a guy continually refuse to sleep with Jessica Alba” didn’t sound appealing—boring, in fact. For better or worse, that is not the case, as that part of the film is short-lived. The alternative, however, is definitely not better.
Good Luck Chuck relies on two things as the primary source for its humor: Charlie having to engage in gross sex to prove/exploit the good luck charm theory, and Jessica Alba running into things like she’s a long-lost Three Stooges reject. And when lame jokes aren’t painful enough, it even tries its hand at being sweet and charming. It is neither.
Let’s take a look at that first one. Twice, in this film, we see Charlie horrified to be raped by two different women who are on the plump side. Cue breaking furniture to stress how heavy these women are, and cue laughter, right? However, one is meant for us to laugh at his misfortune, and one is meant for us sympathize with. You see, Charlie is such a great guy that he allows himself to be raped by his forlorn secretary, even so far as to whisper sweet nothings to her. It’s like saying, “Wow, sex with a fat chick sure is disgusting! And we’ll show you the grossness so you’ll agree, but look at how noble this guy is for doing it! You should root for him!”
No, Mr. Movie Persuasion, I’m not falling for it. You’re trying to have the cake and eat it too, which is probably what gave you the idea for the fat jokes in the first place.
As for Alba’s character, it’s the perfect evidence to how clueless the movie is about women in general. Where is this pool of attractive, busty women who are so desperate to get married that they’re willing to pay with their body? They can’t enjoy being single? Alba’s character is supposedly the only woman in the entire movie to have a personality, but her “personality” is basically just that she’s a klutz, which adds nothing to the plot or her relationship with Charlie. This is how astoundingly uncreative Good Luck Chuck is: it can’t even scrape some wit out of its own premise. In other words, it’s so desperate for laughs that it resorts to smacking Jessica Alba into a lamppost.
You’d think this sort of film is something of a fantasy that was studied, architected and engineered to be the perfect adolescent boy’s wet dream—after all, it has tons of Dane Cook sex scenes that aim to be sexy more than funny—but you’d be surprised to know how many teenaged girls were giggling, clapping and jumping in their seats when Charlie laid out one corny woo after another. No wonder you see so many teenage girls end up pregnant, dumped and confused. If they buy this sort of sexist tripe as their ideal romance, then guys, you have no idea how easy your work is. Watch and learn.
"Good Luck Chuck" opens September 21, 2007 and is rated PG13. Comedy. Directed by Mark Helfrich. Written by Josh Stolberg. Starring Dan Fogler, Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Lonny Ross.
