Vaguely amusing but the vast majority is aimed at people who still laugh when they hear the word "booby"
10 August 2008
When young Charlie has a bad experience with a goth girl after a game of spin the bottle, he gets a curse put on him but thinks nothing on it. A casual comment at a wedding of an ex reveals suggests that whenever he sleeps with a woman, the next man she meets will be her true love and she will get married. At first sceptical, Charlie is soon convinced by his friend Stu to ride the "curse" for all he has got which, thanks to a mix of the internet and desperate young women, he is soon deep in "it" on a nightly basis. It is during this period though that he meets the clumsy but gorgeous Cam and finds they have great chemistry – indeed he likes her so much that he cannot risk the "curse" being real and sets out to break it before he consummates the relationship with Cam.

I watched this film because of the sheer amount of bile that it had had piled onto it made me curious to see what it was about this film that justified it. Watching it for myself I have to confess as to being a bit mystified as to why this film was so slated because really it is no worse in regards laughs or taste that loads of other basic comedies that rely heavily on goofy sexual comedy and a weak plot to appeal to an audience of teenage boys. That is not to say that the film is any good though, because it isn't by any means, just that it is not the end of the world as we know it. Instead it is a mildly amusing film that is built on a poor idea, dumb plot and has some moments that are a matter of gross-out style comedy. As such it does the absolute basics and produced the odd chuckle from me along the way but no doubt it was not a "comedy" as I would like to think of it.

The script is poor but the film is helped a lot more than it deserves by a couple of good(ish) performances. I know may people hate him but, while I don't particularly like Cook, he does have a certain charm to him when he gets the right pitch from his material. He does play it too cocky too often (but then he has kissed Alba) but he is still a decent enough person for this type of thing. Alba deserves a lot better than this – maybe not for her actual talent but certainly for her current fame, it does her career no good to be in the sort of thing that sort pretty rising starlet should be getting. As it is her character is thankless and it is, as usual, her looks and girly giggle/wiggle that carries her through it. Having just seen him in Balls of Fury, I quite liked seeing Fogler again – a simple character to provide crude laughs but he plays it well.

I am being kind to this film, maybe to offset some of the kicking it has gotten but please remember that Good Luck Chuck is not any good. A few chuckles are all the casual viewer will get while they suffer the constant nudity and crudity that is aimed at children and no matter how much the cast work it, there simply isn't the material there to work with. Not the end of the world then – just another banal, sub-par comedy.
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