“My Super Ex Girlfriend” (20th Century Fox)
Lois Lane and Superman With the Sexes Reversed
Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson co-star in a fantasy film about a super hero and her regular guy boyfriend. “My Super Ex Girlfriend” tells the story of G-Girl and the man who woos and wins her heart. It is the Superman/Lois Lane thing with the sexes reversed. Here however the course of true love doesn’t run smoothly and the guy decides to break it off. That is when things begin to get nasty.
Jenny Johnson (Thurman) is a mousy art dealer living in New York. Matt Saunders (Wilson) is a guy who hasn’t had much luck with women. These two meet on a subway and there is an instant attraction. Soon they are a couple and life seems serene and uncomplicated. But Jenny has a secret, one she finally confesses to Matt. She is really G-Girl, the amazing superhero who saves people’s lives on a regular basis.
Matt is duly impressed and swears to keep her alter ego secret. He does this until Jenny/G Girl starts exhibiting some non-super actions. She becomes obsessively jealous of Matt’s co-worker Hannah Lewis (Anna Faris). She becomes so insanely jealous that Matt eventually decides to break off the relationship. That is when G-Girl uses her super powers to make Matt’s life miserable
All of this should be fun and hilarious but it isn’t. It becomes tiresome quickly and dull at the end. The plot is rich with comedic potential but nothing is as funny as it should be, and nobody is as likeable as they could be.
Thurman is okay as Jenny/G-Girl but when she is Jenny she is so drab that you don’t understand why Matt is attracted to her in the first place. And when she is G-Girl she is so manic that you wonder the same thing all over again. With the right script Uma could have been amazing, but this one keeps her lead footed even when she is flying high.
Wilson doesn’t quite have the comic timing of his brother Owen. He comes off as a nice guy but not one with any special appeal. And with blah Uma and insipid Faris as the two women in his life, his character would be better off moving out of town.
Rainn Wilson of “The Office” fame has some fun moments as Wilson’s best friend. Eddie Izzard however is not much fun as G-Girl’s arch nemesis Professor Bedlam, Wanda Sykes, who is a funny woman, is misused totally as Matt’s boss.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and sexual situations.
Nothing about this movie goes right. It looks cheaply made, the characters are one dimensional, and the actors are not up to speed. On paper it probably looked good but when they threw it up on the screen it just didn’t work. Director Ivan Reitman has helped create some amazing movies in the past, such as “Old School” and “Stripes,” but this effort is a dud.
I scored “My Super Ex Girlfriend” a jilted 4 out of 10.
