America's Sweethearts
dir. Joe Roth
Columbia Pictures

The fake clips are brazenly idiotic, so clichéd you can't believe they're not butter.

It's the first example of how America's Sweethearts works hard to be a send-up of both schmaltzy romantic comedies that pair pat plots with popular stars and the cult of idealized celebrity couples. But somewhere between a Larry King cameo and too many dog-in-the-crotch jokes, America's Sweethearts loses its grip on both the parody and the heart of the characters.

It's something to take up with director Joe Roth, who also gave the world Revenge of the Nerds Part II. Roth piles on the campy plot devices until America's Sweethearts turns tepid and vaguely nauseating, like a budget buffet about two hours past its prime. He throws in unfunny daydream sequences, a dopey brawl and a good ol' cactus-to-the-groin. Some of the characters qualify as campy devices, too, like Hank Azaria as Gwen's lisping Spanish boytoy.

Given the insatiable public appetite for celebrity couples — Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan — a movie about Hollywood relationships should be as easy to sell, but America's Sweethearts can't deliver the dirt or the laughs. It's about as shallow as the post-breakup issue of People.

It all starts with Billy Crystal as Lee Phillips, the public-relations mastermind who plots to reunite the beautiful people — or at least the illusion of them — in the name of saving the studio's bottom line.

Lee's job is to make the magic happen: keep the estranged couple in the same place, ply the press corps with goodies and gossip, and convince everyone that the last Gwen and Eddie flick, Time Over Time, is a big hit. He must also hide the fact that said film is being held hostage by director Hal Weideman (Christopher Walken). Walken plays an auteur with a Unabomber complex (and a nod to Stanley Kubrick that's more than just the name).

Lee's a great role for Crystal, probably because the actor co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Tolan. As he juggles star egos and schmoozes with critics, it starts to resemble his gig hosting the Academy Awards: a muddled variety show with hammy star turns and long interludes that may set up a one-liner, if you're lucky. Crystal is right at home as the wily conspirator who knows all the angles.

Giving him a hand is Julia Roberts as Kiki, Gwen's sister and long-suffering personal assistant. She lives to stroke her sister's vanity and smooth over whatever professional or marital or cosmetic woes befall her. Next to the stunning Zeta-Jones, Roberts's ugly duckling routine is almost plausible, but the two still don't look like they came from the same gene pool.

That is, until Kiki loses 60 pounds and decides she's the woman to help Eddie get over Gwen for good.

If only the audience had a reason to root for her. Flashbacks to chubby Kiki are more grotesque than funny or pathetic. The fake fat sits on her like a straitjacket, and the scenes are too quick to let the audience get used to thinking about Roberts with a double chin and pot belly. Her wallflower act works a little too well in the beginning, and, later, her attempts at physical comedy still can't compete with Gwen's diabolical divadom.

Regardless, there's no spark in the love story to carry the rest of the plot. The relationship between Eddie and Kiki is barely worth mentioning as a rebound fling, let alone a romance.

America's Sweethearts wears thin long before Time Over Time finally appears in a big, implausible finale that even Walken can't save. Suddenly, the gap between the story and the groan-inducing fake movie scenes looks smaller and smaller.

At one point early in the movie, Lee tells a protégé (Seth Green) that the trick to pulling off the ruse is to lure all the press out to a resort in the desert, where there's no where else to go if it sucks. Trapped in the multiplex at the end of this film, you might understand exactly what he means.

— Megan Christensen (mmc3e4 at mizzou dot edu)