Starring Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve and TJ Miller. Directed by Jim Field Smith. Released June 4 2010. Certificate 15. Genre – Romantic Comedy.

My thoughts before

IT’S been a good while since I’ve reviewed a fluffy romantic comedy.

Dear John was only a month ago, yes, but that’s hardly one of the easy-to-watch romances with a generically happy ending and slapstick situations.

It’s got the usual release schedule for this type of film – a slightly promising trailer with (guaranteed) most of the funny moments in it and a poster that seems to be designed by the exact same team as every other movie like this.

Seriously, has there been a shred of originality in these posters for the past decade? The red and black text, white background…

With a writing team already on the ball this year (they co-wrote the wacky Hot Tub Time Machine) so there’s promise there, although the cast is hardly proven.

The two leads, for instance, seem to specialise in bit parts and this is their first big chance to impress. It’s refreshing to go in with little thoughts, based on no pre-conceptions of the cast or directors.

So with a slightly embarrassed confession I go in blind to She’s Out Of My League (not literally of course). But I figure most people will be too.

Afterwards

THERE are times when films play out so predictably, to both the reader and I, that writing a review seems fairly redundant.

To say She’s Out Of My League is exactly as you’d expect is correct; it won’t necessarily disappoint, it won’t make you raw with laughter but it won’t make you cringe either.

It’s just one of those romantic comedies that plays to the dating crowd and will soon be forgotten once even the bargain bins fail to shift copies.

The film follows Kirk (Jay Baruchel), who follows that American romance clich� that the ‘ugly’ guy who wants the gorgeous girl tends to be, in reality, an ordinary looking guy with bad dress sense and a few odd quirks. Just like the ‘ugly’ girl in these types of films in reality tend to be pretty girls in dungarees and glasses.

Anyway, as the title suggests he meets gorgeous Molly (Alice Eve, who I recognise from somewhere but couldn’t pinpoint where) and, after she leaves her phone at his check-in desk (he’s a security guy at an airport, dreams of being a pilot!) they meet up so he can give it back.

And as luck has it, and unbeknown to both his friends and everyone in the cinema, she takes a liking to him.

The rest of the tale plays out as predictably as can be expected.

Jay Baruchel’s character is likeable enough, although I kind of felt he was over-acting at times.

Alice Eve’s Molly character was as perfect as the character needed to be (although I wonder if her big ‘reveal’ was really her, I doubt it…) and I think her best friend Patty (Krysten Ritter, who recently did a brilliant job in AMC drama Breaking Bad) was possibly miscast, none of Kirk’s friends seemed to like her even though she was arguably equally as attractive as Molly but with a more interesting personality.

My main qualms with the film are that there’s literally nothing special in anything about it.

Some of the set-ups ‘could’ have been hilarious in different hands (be that different writers, direction or cast, I can’t decide) but they just ended up as fairly amusing.

Nothing was especially ‘laugh-out-loud’ and any emotional revelations were so expected that I was tapping my finger on occasion to hurry up and get to it.

One scene stood out though, as poor Kurt is faced with meeting Molly’s parents for the first time – battling the need to be polite with the fact that the groin area of his trousers were recently… dampened after getting rather steamy with Molly only moments before. His reactions and the general situation raised a good few laughs.

It’s difficult though to knock a film that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the throw-away slice of date fodder that it is. It won’t further anyone’s career, had no clever direction or script that made it stand-out and none of the performances would have challenged anyone involved – but this isn’t what the movie was trying to achieve.

It wanted the simple concept (regular guy getting gorgeous girl) to play out with just enough soppiness to appease the girl, just enough sexiness to appease the guy and just enough smiles to please both person’s on the date.

And, of course, the fairytale ending.

She’s Out Of My League ticks those boxes, and although it doesn’t try anything different (like recent romance flick 500 Days Of Summer, that’s infinitely better) it does what it promised and I can’t fault it for that.