When it comes to most any product, marketing and advertising are sometimes just as important as the thing or service that's being sold. After all, if consumers don't know about it, the chances of any sort of business success are pretty much nil. That is, of course, unless positive word of mouth manages to get enough people to plunk down their money and buy or see what others have been raving about.
Movies crave both types of attention as their box office strength nowadays is usually only limited to the first few weeks of their existence (although home video does provide extended shelf life and more gradual returns). Accordingly, it's fascinating what tactics the marketing departments use with certain films.
Take, for instance, "Good Luck Chuck." When the trailers first arrived in multiplexes, it was promoted as a ribald sex comedy about a man -- played by the yet to impress Dane Cook -- who becomes quite popular with the ladies when they learn that if they sleep with him, the next guy they date will be theirs forever in marital bliss. Not surprisingly, he's then overrun by casual sex. Thus, one would assume, the film was being targeted to those who made "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" such surprise hits.
But an interesting thing happened between that marketing conception and the delivery of the film. For reasons yet to be determined, the promotions department suddenly switched gears and began advertising the film as something of a screwball romantic comedy where the same fella starts dating the gorgeous but super klutzy girl of his dreams, full body embodied by Jessica Alba.
One would think the switch was done to try to attract more women. Yet, it doesn't really matter as word of mouth -- the negative kind this time around -- will likely sink this project as fast as the real world's reaction to a guy's fantasy that he could get to live like Cook's character in the first scenario.
The beauty, if you will, of those other recent sex comedies is that they had varying degrees of smarts, charm, and heart to them, thus diffusing -- to varying degrees -- the otherwise crass and sexually explicit material. That's not the case here that's something of a combination equivalent of the supporting characters in "The Wizard of Oz."
Without the brains, heart, or courage to do something special with the material, its attempt toward cinematic Oz is a boring, predictable, and offensive journey that will have sex comedy fans longing for the touch of Judd Apatow (the guy responsible, in varying ways, for the aforementioned pics).
While clearly nothing stupendous in terms of imaginative comedy, the underlying if severely flawed premise at least has some potential as well as stereotypical appeal to both sexes. After all, many a guy has dreamed of such a scenario, while more than a few women long for eternal love and a guy who will change his ways just for them. Unfortunately, the way in which writer Josh Stolberg and director Mark Helfrich have concocted and then attempted to execute their story will leave most everyone feeling jilted and certainly unfulfilled.
It certainly doesn't help that Cook flops again as a comedy lead, providing neither the comedic timing nor touches to make his character fun, funny, and/or endearing. While Jessica Alba delivers on the film's quotient for her kind of alluring eye candy, she fails just as miserably as Cook, especially when trying to do the slapstick, pratfalls and physical comedy. With little to no believable chemistry (be that comedic, romantic, and/or sexual) between them, there's no reason for the viewer to care. And with little in the way of genuine or at least original laughs, most will likely quickly lose patience with this offering.
Sometimes with such pics, however, at least the supporting characters provide something to enjoy, but that's not the case here. Proving his failure to elicit laughs in "Balls of Fury" was no fluke, Dan Fogler similarly stumbles here as the crass, sex-crazed plastic surgeon best friend.
With even less screen time to work any sort of magic, Lonny Ross fairs even worse as the pot-smoking brother to Alba's character. Even the various penguins don't provide anything of note, beyond the fact that perhaps their fifteen minutes of screen fame -- from all of the pics in which they've been appearing -- are finally up (and you'll likely hope so after watching a particularly unfunny sex bit that plays during the end credit role).
All of which means the probable next marketing ploy for the film -- using quotes from critics you've never heard of or those who've sold their soul long ago to studios in exchange for their name appearing in print -- isn't going to make any difference. Maybe they should just be honest and tell potential viewers "good luck" in enjoying this lame sex/romantic/penguin comedy. "Good Luck Chuck" rates as a 2 out of 10.
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