ONE HARSH CRITIC: Along Came Polly

Ben Stiller is funny, just not in this film.  Along Came Polly, a story of whether to risk or not to risk, embodies the awkwardness of two people coming together who don't belong together, and that's just what this film looks like -- a flat, miscast, predictable flick with a few haphazard laughs.  

Reuben Feffer (Stiller), a man who gets paid to analyze risk, has his predictable and risk-free life turned upside down when his newlywed wife (Debra Messing) is caught knocking flippers with scuba coach Claude, played by a very funny Hank Azaria.   Reuben is  forced back into the social realm by his best friend and child actor Sandy Lyle (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), where he reunites with high school chum Polly Prince (Jennifer Anniston).  

Reuben is forced by his profession of risk assessment to avoid danger in its mildest form at all costs, creating a man plagued by near obsessive compulsive behavior. Polly is his antithesis.  Roaming from country to country with no plan for a future, her attitude, lust for life and obvious beauty are irresistible to the uptight number cruncher.  Reuben, beginning to fall for Polly, starts to step outside the narrow lines forming the construct in which he has allowed himself to live.  

When his wife returns after an extended tropical stay with Claude, Reuben must choose between the comforts of his old monotony and the unpredictable irregularity that would come with a relationship with Polly.  Obviously converted to the wild side by two hours of blind ferrets, diarrhea and bad salsa dancing, Reuben breaks free from the shackles of the mundane, and chooses his new love and exciting love. 

It seems that all too often, a cast of talented actors seem thrown together and become nothing short of disappointing.  Ben Stiller and Jennifer while great in such films as Meet the Parents and The Good Girl respectively, just don't mesh well together.  The success of a romantic comedy demands chemistry, an element that these two just failed to create.  It was like watching two best friends rather than lovers as Polly is more a tutor to the wild side as Reuben attempts to provide some sort of grounding for his new relationship.  Throw in a brilliant Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who wasn't allowed to shine in this film's supporting role, and the cast becomes simply awkward.  

The plot lacked much to be desired as the whole story was lain out in the previews (as if a second grader couldn't have figured it out anyway).  So in a romantic comedy, when the plot is so often predictable, we turn to the laughs right?  Wrong.  With the exception of a few gross out gags (all on the trailer), there really aren't that many jokes for this to be classified as a comedy at all.  Stiller, while funny in so many previous attempts, seems to force bits as his on-edge persona collides with the carefree Anniston.  And what was really so wild about Polly Prince anyway? A pet ferret?  A love for ethnic cuisine? The writers really needed to step it up a notch in the creation of this wild child. Hoffman's character had the potential to deliver the film's biggest laughs as he sits in for Reuben at a board meeting. It seems that the funny aspects of this scene must have been lost on the cutting room floor.  However, Alec Baldwin, who plays Stan Indursky, Reuben's boss, brings a laugh each time he appears on screen as does the talented Azaria.  

There just isn't much here. Characters don't mesh.  Jokes don't, well, exist.  The plot is predictable.  That being said, Along Came Polly is mildly entertaining for what it is and will bring a smile to your face. It just might bring a bigger smile if you wait until it hits the more economical shelves of the video store.  

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Josh Gloer, Movie Correspondent

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