Customer Reviews

Good Luck Chuck (Unrated) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

Having seen Dane Cook as a stand-up comedian and been entertained by his humor and delivery, GOOD LUCK CHUCK seemed like an innocuous brainless evening entertainment. Unfortunately the story and script and direction are so sub par that even the most devoted of potty mouth movie fans will likely find this dud a bore. Hopefully Cook will be given better material for his next outing.

The story is meager but deals with a childhood hex placed on Cook's character, dentist Charlie Logan, which prevents him from finding lasting love: every woman with whom he sleeps (and there are countless encounters in the buff on endless multi-screen images) will marry the man she meets after her liaison with 'good luck' Charlie Logan. His obnoxious breast augmenter best friend Stu (Dan Fogler) sees Chuck's hex as a godsend for open sex, but when Chuck meets Klutz penguin trainer (Jessica Alba) and falls in love, there are problems - the solutions of which are so disgusting and unfunny that hardly need repeating.

This is a film, apparently with an audience (!), that is gross and so over the top that it completely wastes the talents of Cook and Alba. The film is being advertised as the 'chance to extensively see Dane Cook in the buff', but even that is an overstatement. Maybe if the viewer is on strong drugs....No, probably not even then. Pass on this one. Grady Harp, January 08

Crude? Yep! So what! The movie was hysterical. My boyfriend AND my 62 yr old mother were laughing, and so was everyone in the theater. Its fun! The 1st thing my mom said when the credits started to roll was, "I'm buying that - THAT was funny, and not the stupid funny either - really funny!"

"Good Luck Chuck" is not a romantic comedy, but rather a raunchy comedy that is sort of about romance. If there was some notion of romance at the heart of this movie, it would have a chance of working, but of the different organs and body parts that are prominent in this 2007 film, the heart would not be one of them. When we get to the big moment at the end of "Good Luck Chuck," compare it to the same scene in "The Wedding Singer," and you can see how short this one falls of the mark. In other words, this is really not a date film, because first-time director Mark Helfrich's final product is slanted way towards the male of the species. You might check this film out for Jessica Alba, but the focus is on Dane Cook and that along should tell you this movie is going to favor comedy over women, and comedy that favors men over women.

That is not to say that the premise is not promising. The titular Chuck is Charlie Logan (Cook), and, no, the film is not bothered by the fact that nobody calls him Chuck. Because of what happened during an adolescent game of Spin the Bottle, Charlie is cursed: any woman he loves will leave him and immediately find and marry the man of her dreams. As Charlie comes to realize his peculiar situation there is good news--women are throwing themselves at him in order to leap out of his bed and find the guy for them--and bad news--he meets Cam Wexler (Alba), who is cute, a klutz, and works with penguins, allowing the film to show how far the penguin fever of "March of the Penguins", "Happy Feet," et al., has fallen. More importantly, she looks like Jessica Alba, so we instantly understand why Cam is a keeper from Charlie's perspective, even if his best friend Stu (Dan Fogler), a plastic surgeon whose practice is limited to boob jobs, probably thinks too little of her. This creates the ultimate paradox for Charlie, because to love this woman is to lose her, which is a pretty interesting Catch-22.

I am sure that if I added up the minutes that Charlie really does spend more time with Cam than he does with Stu, but it sure does not feel that way. But the real problem in this film comes in the sequences that it is proudest of: the sex montage. There is a whole special feature devoted to it as the "Sex Matrix." My immediate reaction to all of this was to wonder if I had ever seen a motion picture with more naked women in it than this one, and while I am sure I have this is a concerted effort in "Good Luck Chuck" to prove otherwise. But when you are watching a guy have sex with dozens of women, it is hard to lend credence to the idea that he is really in love with the woman he is not having sex with. To offer a rejoinder to Stu, while it is true that sex without love is still sex, it is still without love, and love is supposed to be at the heart of a romantic comedy, which is why this film is not one.

My favorite romantic comedy of recent vintage is probably "50 First Dates," and I gave that one only four stars because the raunchy stuff with Rob Schneider took away from the wonderful stuff happening with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. But "Good Luck Chuck" is following more in the steps of contemporary comedies like "Knocked Up" and "Superbad," where the goal is to produce a unrated DVD edition. So "50 First Dates" is now looking more like a classic romantic comedy to me. If "50 First Dates" had been made the way they made "Good Luck Chuck," then the opening montage of past lovers in the former would have been in the middle, in which case they are no longer past lovers and the decks are not cleared for a real romance. By the time Charlie and Cam get to anything remotely like the romantic part, it is too little too late. When you get to the last in a long line of women, it is hard not to focus on the long line rather than the last woman. The screenplay by Josh Stolberg ("Kids in America") does come up with a decent enough way of resolving the dilemma, but given everything that has come before it, the ending fails to redeem this movie.

I give it one star because its the lowest you can go. If it were possible to give a negative rating I would. This film is marketed as a lighthearted romantic comedy to draw people in, but once there you realize you've been had. Im not prudish but it really burns me that they (whoever THEY are) must have known this would not make money at the box office if people were aware of how raunchy it was so they advertised it as romantic-comedy-date-movie-fare. You go in expecting something like a Drew Barrymore type flick and soon discover its more like softcore porn and boneheaded, not-funny humor. By then its too late to get back your money and the hour and 45 minutes of your life you just wasted. Sometimes suggestive humor is funny, but this is just crude, crude, crude, all the way through. How did they get Jessica Alba to be in this? Anyway, BE WARNED- its unwatchable. Spend your $15 bucks on dinner instead.

As a comedian, I'm a huge fan of Dane Cook. I think his jokes are hilarious and relateable in so many ways. As a goddess, I'm a huge fan of Jessica Alba. She's beautiful, gorgeous, and has an amazing smile. As an actor and an actress, Dane Cook and Jessica Alba really don't impress that much. It's unfortunate, because a movie that could have been enjoyable, funny, and sweet, becomes pedestrian, dumb, and forgettable.

Charlie Logan (Dane Cook) has a problem with women. Once he's slept with them, the next person the women date is going to be their life-long mate. Women (looking for their soul-mate) force themselves onto Charlie, hoping that they'll meet their true love and after they've had their way with him, they do find the person they will spend the rest of their lives with. Pushed on by his best friend (Dan Fogler), Charlie decides that he mine as well get some fun out of his unique situation.

As much fun as the sex may seem at first, Charlie notices that none of the women have any attracton to him whatsover save for the fact that he brings them grooms. Inevitably, he begins to fall for Cam (Jessica Alba), a penguin trainer and expert at the local aquarium with a case of Murphy's Law. The problem is that as much as she wants to sleep with Charlie, he can't let it happen, in fear that she may dump him and find the next guy in her life to be the one.

As a comedy, this movie doesn't fail, but it never exceeds either. Many of the jokes are sexual or slapstick (Alba tripping, hitting poles, breaking things) and after awhile, they became dull (Fogler's antics as a plastic surgeon), unrealistic (Fogler's 3-breasted girlfriend) and somewhat disturbing (a 12-year old girl stripping and coming onto a 12-year old guy is not fun for me). Some jokes hit, some don't. I just wish the writers could think of some more subtle humor, instead of making it seem overblown.

Another factor for a movie of this type is that the love story needs to be fairly solid. To be honest, I felt that the chemistry between Cook and Alba was pretty solid, but it was the character choices that really got to me, especially Cook's. He's supposedly "in love" with Cam, yet has sex with other girls when he gets the chance to. It didn't seem like he cared that much. As for Alba, her character starts out shy and sweet, but as it goes on, she becomes quite sexual and it kind of turned me off (not that Jessica Alba not getting dirty is bad). Fortunately, some of their banter between each other was nice and didn't feel so forced. Overall though, their choices as characters really took me out of their relationship. When Cook tells his feelings to Alba at the end, I wasn't truly convinced of what he was saying.

Nudity doesn't offend me in movies, but this movie had way too much in my opinion. Towards the middle of the film when Cook realizes his gift with women, the audience gets to observe him get it on with said women. A quick little montage maybe would have been nice ("Wedding Crashers", anyone?), but instead it becomes tasteless, dull, and a little repulsive. It wasn't needed and brought down the sweetness that the film was trying to express at times.

Speaking of this "sweetness", this movie tries at times to be overly dramatic. When a plus-size woman wants Charlie in bed, she tells him that he can close his eyes and imagine someone else so he won't have to see her. Right after she says that, a soft, melodramatic score rises as Cook looks into her eyes and says that he'll only imagine her. What?! It turns into a soap opera and after the scene, he tells Fogler that she wasn't great in bed at all. Wow...moving.

Overall, this movie is enjoyable enough to rent or waste two hours, but that's it. As soon as you're done the two hours, wait another two hours, and then you'll forget it.

I thought the movie was funny. Paced a bit fast, and the jokes could have been written a bit better, but I thought the movie was actually fun to watch. I was expecting Jessica Alba to be horrible in her perfomance (ie Honey), but I liked her acting in this movie, she fits the romantic-comedy genre better than anything she's done thus far. And Dane Cook was also funny, albeit sometimes over did some of his reactions. All in all, it's a fun movie, nothing you'll go telling your friends to go out to buy, but still worth a watch!

this movie is so funny. i don't understand why a lot of people are dissing it. i think it's hilarious. and Jessica Alba is so Hot. i love this movie if you haven't seen it I recommend it.

Yet again, I wish that Amazon would let reviewers give half stars, as I can't quite put this into the 3 star category, but don't really feel it's that bad either. 2.5 would be about right from my point-of-view.

I should make clear that I'm not a fan of Dane Cook. I find his humor just rambling and well, un-funny. With that said, he does well in his role for this movie. Not great, but not bad.

Charlie Logan (Dane Cook) is a cursed man and has been since turning down the goth girl who desperately wanted him back in his younger (10 years old) school days. Anisha (goth girl) put a hex on Charlie so that whoever Charlie was with would find their own true love after being with Charlie, with that true love being the next person they went out with. Later in life word spreads that Charlie Logan is a lucky charm for women, and the women start almost literally throwing themselves at Charlie so that they could then go and find 'the one'.

Early on in the story we see Charlie at a wedding where he is being toasted as the lucky charm that helped the bride find her true love. At the same wedding a friend of the bride comes to sit at the same table as Charlie and we meet Cam (Jessica Alba). Will fate let these two be happy ever after, or is Charlie destined to spend the rest of his life making women happy as they get ready for find their true loves?

The un-rated version of the movie includes plenty of partial nudity and the requisite language mixed in. The R rating (for the rated version) is certainly deserved as well.

The Blu-ray version of the disc gets mixed reviews from me as well. It is yet another Blu-ray that doesn't offer the ability to bypass the previews (or at least definitely doesn't make it obvious how to do that). I am no fan of being forced to sit through previews every time I start watching a disc based movie (especially if it's a movie I've seen multiple times, which would, uh, be the kind of movies I would purchase and own). Sadly this 'feature' (inability to bypass the previews) seems quite prevalent among Blu-ray titles. It seems completely disrespectful towards the viewer and just frustrates me. I guess the disc producers are just trying to offer me time to go microwave some popcorn to munch on when I do get to see the movie. To be fair, you can skip most of the previews on the disc here just by continually pressing the Next chapter button (fast forward to next chapter). Again though, not immediately obvious and pressing the Top Menu button results in a 'That operation is not supported here' message.

On the plus side this disc includes the ability to bring up the Blu-line slider. An interesting book marking feature that shows your current place in the film and allows for setting book marks easily via tips as to which buttons to press on the remote control. It's a neat feature that makes good use of the Blu-ray Disc remote control for the PS3 (as an example). Press up or down on the disc on the remote to pop-up the Blu-line slider and check it out.

There are some interesting featurettes and additional content on the disc as well. Just be aware that those should carry the same rating as the film itself, up to and including being unrated.

Mr. Bernabo and Ms. Richards wrote all the true words in their reviews to warn me away, but the opportunity to see more "on-screen Jessica Alba" was so overpowering, I went on and watched it anyway. Was I ever sorry!

Dane Cook and Dan Fogler are two of the worst actors I've ever seen. As best as I can remember (I'm trying hard to forget this movie) all of the humor was based on two guy sidekicks saying the most inappropriate words at all the most inappropriate times imaginable. I cannot think of a role either actor would be suited for. It's not even worth a review -- think of this as a warning to your entertainment welfare.

The writing for this movie was just awful. And lord knows I adore Jessica Alba, but even that darling couldn't make this movie worth watching.

An overall abysmal effort.

I knew that this movie was based on the Benjamin Kollenbroich story, but I wasn't expecting it to capture the same obscure humor. But this film hits it out of the ball park. Dane Cook does a tremendous job on screen and delivers the laughs. He is a perfect fit for the despicable, yet lovable, Benjamin Kollenbroich character! Jessica Alba is beautiful and captivating ... everything a viewer could hope for! I'm glad I purchased the video, rather than just renting it.