He's Just Not That Into You - 1 1/2 smiles

I usually like romantic comedies, especially if they’re intelligent, like “You’ve Got Mail” and “Legally Blonde.” However, I wasn’t expecting much from “He’s Just Not That Into You” and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s predictable, full of clichés and filled with characters so inane that you wonder if you stumbled into an alternate universe. At a whopping 129 minutes, the interconnected stories following the relationship troubles of a huge cast of characters are superficial and, well, pretty stupid. There’s an on-again, off-again couple Connor (Kevin Connolly) and Anna (Scarlett Johansson), who meets Ben (Bradley Cooper) at a supermarket. Ben and his wife Janine (Jennifer Connelly), the only married couple in the film, are having problems, making Ben ripe for Anna’s attentions. Anna is friends with Mary (Drew Barrymore), a newspaper advertising director whose own romantic life is nonexistent. Then there’s Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), a perennial loser at love, whose blind date with Connor leads to predictable heartbreak. Alex (Justin Long) is Connor’s roommate who befriends Gigi by giving her blunt advice about men. And Neil (Ben Affleck) and Beth (Jennifer Aniston) seen happy together except Beth would like to get married.

As with most movies with ensemble casts, some stories are more interesting than others. The least compelling, but the one that dominates, is about Gigi and most of the time you want to slap her because she’s so annoying. The one that has the most potential, about Neil and Beth, is the one that is underdeveloped. There is a fleeting scene between Beth and her sisters that illustrates that happiness in a relationship is not defined by the existence of a marriage license, but defined by the love between two people. As a whole, the movie is too long and because there are too many stories, you rarely care about what happens to the characters. So you’ll probably see “He’s Just Not That Into You” if you like romantic comedies, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. 2/13/09