La mia super ex-ragazza

This film is nothing to write home about, but it has a few shiny flourishes. The thing to remember is that this film was aimed at the teen age and college comic book crowd. It wasn't meant to be anything more than that. And when you look at it in that context you find those bright moments that Reitman was trying to give the audience.

This isn't adult fare gone bad as it was presented for adults. It's teenage fast-food cinema that's got more production values and gloss than the teen-sex romps I grew up with; "Spring Break" or "One Crazy Summer" as examples.

Yeah, Thurman's character has got issues. But she's supposed to. This is a teenage guy film about a comic book guy's perspective on women. The target audience is probably the biggest item to criticize, because if there are enough people (immature men) who fall into the category of feeling helpless and powerless against women when in a relationship, then maybe there's something wrong with society to allow such a population to explode and support this film. Yeah, that's kind of high minded and somewhat near leaving the topic of the film itself, but I think it's important to contemplate.

All in all I didn't mind the film, but did find it ridiculous and mildly amusing here and there. Yes, a better film could have been made for the adult dating scene, and we could argue about whether that should have been greenlit as opposed to what we have, and yes, it probably would have been a better film. But take this film for what it is, a time waster. A film to put on the DVD player as you hit the "sleep" button on your TV.

Watch if only so inclined.

Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) thinks he has found the perfect woman in Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman), who seems like a quiet but pretty woman, though he soon learns that she's needy and possessive, oh, and she's also the superhero G-Girl, though you wouldn't know it from the things she does to Matt after he freaks out and breaks up with her.

A promising premise is ruined by a mediocre execution. My Super Ex-Girlfriend is still an enjoyable comedy however it relies too much on cheap sex jokes and it ends up being a forgettable experience. What went wrong? The cast and the director could not overcome the weakness of the script and I didn't like the way they played it out. I was expecting the guy to be a jerk and it could have been a female fantasy revenge film. However, they made the guy likable and they made the superhero a psycho. It just wasn't very fresh and after about forty minutes, the film wore out it's welcome. Sure, there were a few funny lines however the weak middle and horrible ending kept it from really breaking out.

Director Ivan Reitman has lost his touch. After a successful run in the eighties and early nineties, he started making crap like Evolution and Father's Day. I wouldn't say My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a complete bust but I don't give him credit for any of the quality the movie holds, which isn't too much. Don Payne did an awful job with the screenplay. The majority of the jokes were lame and most of the supporting characters were just one-note. He also kept reusing a lot of the same jokes making the thing really tedious at times.

A few of the actors were good enough to save the film. Uma Thurman was great as G-Girl and she had many funny lines. Luke Wilson was a bit pale and not very interesting. I don't think he makes for an appealing leading man and he's better in supporting roles like in The Family Stone. Anna Faris was just doing her "Scary Movie" routine and it's getting a little old. She needs a challenge or at least some better scripts. Wanda Sykes is either hit or miss for me. She was great in Monster-In-Law and she was bad in Clerks 2. Here, she is just annoying and doesn't bring anything to the movie. Eddie Izzard was alright, nothing special. Rainn Wilson was just annoying and not funny. Overall, I was disappointed with the movie. It wasn't awful yet it had so much potential and the final result was just so average. Rating 5/10

A guy desperate for action attempts to hit on a gorgeous girl in a bus. She refuses him, but when he runs after someone who tries to steal her purse they get together anyway. And there it starts - a relation that is slightly tainted by the fact that she is a jealous and neurotic superhero. It can't be a secret that things between them are going to be problematic.

In short, a story that could promise to grow out into a cool film. And IMO, it succeeds at being a nice film. It's no masterpiece, but it had me in tears from laughing on more than one occasion - the two lead characters twirl around each other in a crazy love fest that is, even with the superhero thing going, believable.

So. Thin story, but worked out really funny and thus worthy of cinema time.

7 out of 10 broken hearts

A big surprise, probably because I was expecting it to suck. The reviews were pretty dismissive of it, even though they all seemed to agree that the concept was golden: a man finds out his new girlfriend is a super hero, and finds, when he wants to break up with her, that she's kind of a psycho. I kept expecting it to fall apart, but it never really did. Sure, it doesn't make as much of its awesome premise as it could, and chooses to be short when it might have been better to expand the film's universe. But I can't blame it for that. Uma Thurman is great as the bipolar superhero, G-Girl. And I've discovered, after several years of disliking him, that Luke Wilson can be absolutely perfect when cast as a schlub. He's given two of the best comic performances of 2006 (the other in the pretty much unreleased Idiocracy). I absolutely cracked up at the expressions on his face when he and Thurman first have sex. It's one of the funniest sex scenes ever. My only real complaint is that they make G-Girl a bit too much of a psycho, like almost unbelievably so. Maybe with some background I could have accepted it better. I can forgive its flaws, though, because I had a really good time watching it. Underrated, for sure.

This movie answers the question, how does a relationship survive when your girlfriend is codependent, clinging, needy, jealous .. and has powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal women?

Without spoiling the movie, I can safely assure you it does not, but there's great fun to be had along the way. Uma Thurman is perfect as the mercurial super-heroine, an uber-babe, mysteriously named G-Girl, who unlike most in her sisterhood, is not *always* dedicated to truth, justice, and the American Way.

Thurman is also believable as the thoroughly daft, yet somehow still fetching, curator Jenny. When she is dumped for a less endowed but more emotionally secure and well adjusted rival, G-Girl goes ballistic, and what follows is not pretty. It's funny, but it's not pretty ..

It's a delightful premise, hell hath no fury like a super-heroine scorned, and those involved don't altogether carry it off, but it has its moments, and I think I'll get the DVD.

I liked this movie ..