Date movies tend to follow a predictable pattern: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back, blah blah blah, happy ending.
"Good Luck Chuck" follows the pattern but manages to throw in enough slapstick comedy to make it more than a complete waste of time.
Dane Cook plays Charlie who, due to a botched session of Seven Minutes in Heaven, is cursed to never find love. As a side effect of the curse, the women Charlie sleep with find their true love shortly after.
Everything is fine until Charlie meets Cam (Jessica Alba), an extremely accident-prone girl who, surprise surprise, turns out to be the girl of his dreams. The problem is, if he sleeps with her then she will fall in love with someone else.
While the plot is mediocre, the rather elaborate premise is a terrific vehicle for physical comedy. Both Cook and Alba are subject to a near continuous stream of incidents that leave them battered, bruised and humiliated. More than a few of these incidents involve penguins, including the scene where the feisty birds attack the "fish" in Cook's pants and a scene that can only be described as penguin bowling.
"Good Luck Chuck" is rated R and takes full advantage of the rating to get laughs. It includes a hilarious sex montage, and Chuck's best friend Stu, played by Dan Fogler ("School For Scoundrels"), spouts crude and often obscene sexual advice. As an added bonus, Lonny Ross, whom "30 Rock" fans might recognize, offers sage stoner advice as Cam's brother Joe.
Unfortunately the story gets in the way of the comedy, as it's clear that writer Josh Stolberg understands comedy but not character development.
Chuck is the stereotypical ladies man with the heart of gold, and Cam is the classic perfect girl with one major flaw to make her more relatable to the audience. Despite the premise, the characters seem bland and the whole relationship seems like one big cliché. If not for the slapstick, "Good Luck Chuck" would seem redundant and pointless.
Both Cook and Alba did a fine job with their characters, there just wasn't a whole lot to work with. Both seemed totally committed to the physical comedy, and the scenes that only involved minimal dialogue were invariably full of laughs.
The flaws in "Good Luck Chuck" mainly stem from the conventions of the romantic comedy genre. However, it does a pretty good job considering the genre's limited nature. So while it is certainly no "Superbad," couples looking for a fun date movie could do a lot worse.
