Vince Valitutti / Warner Bros.Matthew McConaughey portrays Ben "Finn" Finnegan, and Kate Hudson plays Tess Finnegan in a scene from "Fool's Gold," opening this weekend.
Capsule reviews of films opening this week:
"Fool's Gold" " There's a moment when Matthew McConaughey, as a flaky treasure hunter, finds himself stranded in the middle of the ocean, bobbing up and down as he clings to an ice chest, baking in the stillness of the sun and praying that someone will come by and rescue him.
And you're watching him thinking, "Yeah, I know exactly how he feels." This painfully lifeless and lame romantic comedy from "Hitch" director Andy Tennant leaves you desperately wishing that someone " anyone " would swoop down and fix it.
Pick up the pacing, juice up the chemistry, cut out 20 minutes, something. Because as it stands now, there's nothing romantic or comic about it. McConaughey and Kate Hudson team up for a second time following 2003's "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."
And while they look great individually as they traipse about the film's Caribbean setting, showing off their tanned, toned bodies, they don't play terribly well off one another.
The script from Tennant, John Claflin and Daniel Zelman has Hudson and McConaughey, as a newly divorced couple, awkwardly reconciling when a clue pops up that could lead to the hidden treasure they'd been obsessed with for years.
This essentially consists of her hitting him on the head with various objects until she eventually realizes she'd rather make out with him instead.
Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone slum it in supporting roles.
PG-13 for action violence, some sexual material, brief nudity and language. 113 min.
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"The Hottie and the Nottie" " Really, there's no point in paying to see a movie starring Paris Hilton " she of the platinum blonde extensions and the nonexistent acting range " because you can get exactly what she has to offer for free by turning on a TV infotainment show or clicking on any number of gossip Web sites.
Here, she once again essentially plays herself, or at least the version of herself she's concocted for public consumption. (Sadly, the world may never get to know the "real" Paris, if such a thing exists.)
Then again, Katharine Hepburn built a career on portraying a carefully crafted version of herself, so hey, anything's possible. Hilton stars as sexpot Cristabel Abbott, who refuses to date anyone until her homely best friend, June (Christine Lakin), finds a boyfriend.
Gangly, insecure Nate (Joel David Moore), who's been in love with Cristabel since they were 6 years old, schleps from Maine back to Los Angeles to win her heart " but before he can get to the hottie, he must go through the nottie. (As Nate's obese, wisecracking pal describes June, "She's like some hideous dragon guarding the princess from escape.")
Director Tom Putnam's film, which plays like a poor man's Farrelly brothers comedy, is as lazy and formulaic as they come. Even before we meet June, we have every reason to believe she's secretly gorgeous, and simply in need of some veneers and a facial wax.
PG-13 for crude and sexual content. 98 min.
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"In Bruges" " Playwright Martin McDonagh breathes unabashedly obscene, new life into the overly familiar mismatched-buddy formula with this comedy about hit men sent into hiding in the quaint Belgian town of Bruges.
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are clearly having a blast reveling in the rapid-fire rhythms of McDonagh's politically incorrect dialogue, their deadly profession a sharp contrast with their fairy-tale surroundings. Ralph Fiennes tears it up, too, as their brash boss.
Farrell, doing some of the best work of his uneven career, is like an anxious puppy dog, looking around nervously and complaining non-stop about his desire to be somewhere, anywhere else.
Gleeson, meanwhile, is the sweetly calm father figure who's tickled to be in Bruges and insistent on traveling its charming canals and taking in the medieval sights. (As Farrell's character disdainfully puts it, "Going around in a boat. Looking at stuff.")
They play off each other with ease and relish, especially as the situations they find themselves in become increasingly absurd. (An American actor on a movie shoot " a dwarf with a penchant for drugs and prostitutes " turns into a central figure.)
That's why it's such an enormous letdown when McDonagh, directing his first feature, resorts to action-flick cliches in the film's overblown conclusion.
R for strong bloody violence, pervasive language and some drug use. 107 min.
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"Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights " Hollywood to the Heartland" " This documentary is only sporadically wild, but it does indeed go through some Western states.
It also ends up being as long and draggy as the title itself. Vaughn had a clever idea, though, in amassing a group of little-known comics and taking them on a tour across the country, hitting cities like Lubbock, Texas, and Little Rock, Ark., between Los Angeles and his hometown of Chicago.
We get to know the divergent personalities of Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco both onstage and on the tour bus.
We hear their stories of struggling to make it in the grueling business of stand-up and we meet their families, which allows for a bit more emotional investment than you would achieve from a straight-up comedy concert film.
And Vaughn himself shows his humble, vulnerable side, something we rarely see from the star of "Swingers" and "Wedding Crashers" who's made his name with a quick-talking, smart-alecky wit. (A stop at a shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina also provides an unlikely heavy turn.)
But while the comics are likable, their routines tend to be hit and miss, and director Ari Sandel probably didn't need to show us every single stop along the way. "Wild West" would have worked nicely if it had been about an hour long and appeared on late-night cable.
R for pervasive language and some sex-related humor. 100 min.
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"Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" " No one dons a "Big Momma's House" fat suit in Martin Lawrence's family-reunion comedy, yet this one's just as awash in silly caricatures.
The comedy's not as broad as in Lawrence's "Big Momma's House" movies, but it's close, and nearly as gross in its physical humor and innuendo. Lawrence's title character is a TV talk show host who fled Georgia to escape his unsupportive family and now reluctantly returns for the 50th anniversary of his parents (James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery).
Playing obnoxious siblings and cousins are Cedric the Entertainer, Mo'Nique, Mike Epps and Michael Clarke Duncan, with Joy Bryant as Roscoe's fake-celebrity fiancee and Nicole Ari Parker as his old school flame.
When they're not beating the stuffing out of one another, the members of this family keep busy crudely mocking their relations and tossing about lewd sexual suggestions.
It mostly adds up to a stream of distasteful, sometimes mean-spirited slapstick.
PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language and some drug references. 114 min.