When in Rome, do not do as this banal movie does. Know what kind of movie you’re in for? There’s an audio record scratch/slowdown effect twice in the first ten minutes. Kirsten Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) is an unlucky in love workaholic who, when in Rome, pilfers coins from the Fountain of Love. This makes the subjects who tossed the coins (Jon Heder, Dax Shepard, Danny DeVito, Will Arnett) magically fall in love with Bell. They chase her back to New York and act like obsessive stalkers. Essentially, this is a rip-off of Love Potion Number Nine, except this rom-com is neither romantic nor comedic. The comedy is mostly brain-dead slapstick and the payoffs never materialize. In one scene, Bell and a date go out for a “night dinner” where they eat completely in the dark. There’s plenty of potential there but it’s like a minute until her posse of stalkers interrupt and the date’s over. There’s stuff like people running into trees, people squeezing into a tiny Italian car, a vase that’s supposed to break as a wedding celebration and refuses to break, and Bell and her lead, Josh Duhamel, have zero chemistry and like a three feet height differential. The movie is so joyless and bereft of energy. The scripts seems to be missing many scenes that fill in details about the various characters, or at least help give setup and context. The movie exists squarely in the absurd realm of romantic comedies and it’s thoroughly mediocre. I would expect nothing less from the writers of Old Dogs. I enjoy Bell but it’s not hard to resist the spell of this junk.

Nate’s Grade: C-