my super ex-girlfriend (Ivan Reitman).
95 minutes. Opens Friday (July 21). For venues and times, see page
87. Rating: NNN
Rating: NNN
In the catalogue of “actresses Hollywood doesn’t really know what to do with,” UmaThurman is an intriguing case study.
On the one hand, Quentin Tarantino thinks she’s a goddess. On the other, there’s My
Super Ex-Girlfriend , which is about the troubles faced by Luke Wilson ‘s >romantically impaired New Yorker when he breaks up with Jenny (Thurman), the neurotic alter ego of G-Girl.
Wilson doesn’t consider the implications of dumping someone who’s neurotic, controlling and desperately needy – and also capable of frying his pet fish with her heat vision and putting his car into low Earth orbit.
It would be nice to see a mainstream movie give Thurman a part as smart as she obviously is. Like most Ivan Reitman films, Super Ex tosses logic aside for big jokes, which would be okay if the jokes were better. If only Reitman could just once realize that character is comedy. A pratfall is funny because of who takes it.
There are some solid laughs here, mostly in the early breakup period, but there’s a loopy logic and the best things aren’t the stars but the supporting players, Eddie Izzard as the supervillain and Anna Faris as the nice girl from the office whom Wilson should be dating. Ignore the awful score and the worse animated end credits, which both seem to have been done in the 70s.
