Review: GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST

Movie: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content throught, some language and a drug reference
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas, Breckin Meyer
Writers: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Director: Mark Waters

"You can't always run from your past," reads the tagline for this 2009 romantic comedy. It should have said, you can't always run from horrific romantic comedies.

Matthew McConaughey plays his typecast self as Connor Mead, a photographer cad who basically has no soul. He sleeps with women for the hell of it and that's it. He has no real relationships with women, not even his assistant. The only woman he's ever really loved broke his heart years ago (or did she?) and he's never recovered from it. He learned the art of wooing women into bed at a young age from his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas, in a role that I was hoping would have made the movie better but sadly he's wasted). Connor goes to his late uncle's mansion where his young brother (Meyer) is getting married to a bridezilla-lite (Lacey Chabert). Connor, of course, does not like or believe in the institution of marriage so he is none too pleased to be there but goes because of his brother. What he doesn't know is that the girl who "broke his heart", Jenny (Jennifer Garner) is the wedding planner/bridesmaid. The next couple scenes are blurry to me but I just remember tons of lame hitting on women and finally Douglas' character shows up and gets the story slightly kicking (it's dead on arrival for a majority of the time though). Connor is to learn about love from 3 ghosts he will be visited by (these people are still alive though yet they're in spirit form, whatever). The rest of the movie is basically trying to show the evolution of Connor's character from cad to nice guy (spoiler alert, but you already know that, because this is a mainstream romantic comedy, there's almost always a happy ending and the main character always learns a lesson).

Wow, I had a tiny sliver of hope for this movie. I liked the idea of it being a romantic comedy take on "A Christmas Carol" and the supporting cast but really all of that is wasted on a film that is pedestrian and by-the-numbers throughout. There are real no surprises or shocks or anything. Even as a date movie, it's pathetic. I am in no ways a biased male film reviewer. I've seen a lot of romantic comedies in my life and I've liked quite a few of them, but THIS was definitely not one I'd ever watch again or with anyone. I wouldn't even recommend it to couples. It has no redeeming value at all. I just felt bad for all the actors in this that I respect, especially Garner, Douglas, Meyer and Emma Stone, who is still too young in her career to be making crap like this, but she thankfully is one of the few shining lights in this movie as the ghost of girlfriends past. The recession must have really been hitting many of these guys and gals hard for them to agree to be in this. Not even McConauhgey, who I can normally stomach in his romantic comedies ("How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days" and "The Wedding Planner" to name a couple), just grated me. I did not wanna see him succeed or get the girl. He did not deserve it. But I am not gonna go on a tangent about "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", it would be a rant wasted. Another thing, the writers of the movie Lucas and Moore, why would they write such tripe like this?! They wrote "The Hangover" for God's sakes! Thank God they have that modern classic under their belts. And Mark Waters, the director. He's known for fluff like this, but he's also responsible for the two lone saving graces in Lindsay Lohan's career "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls". Wow man, can you like stretch your filmmaking muscles please. Every director has at least one GOOD film in them, are those two them? Oh well, there I go ranting again. If you're a guy and you wanna take a girl to see a good romantic comedy, THIS would not be one of them. If you're a girl and you just want a good movie to cuddle up and watch, THIS is not one of those. You've seen it all before and done better. Leave this one on the shelf folks.

My grade for this waste, .5 out of 5 stars.