Directors: Ivan Reitman
Starring: Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard, Wanda Sykes, Rainn Wilson, Mark Consuelos, Greg D'Agostino

- Reviewed by Vickie

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Holy crap, it’s a summer comedy that’s actually FUNNY!

Smart, sassy and laugh-out-loud good, director Ivan Reitman’s latest offering takes the standard romantic-comedy fare—being dumped—and, much in the same way its heroine exacts revenge, turns it on its ass in a most entertaining way.

Luke Wilson is Matt Saunders, a schlubbish “nice guy” who, we’re told, has had a string of crazy girlfriends. He’s single and harboring a crush on his co-worker, Hannah (Anna Faris), when he meets bespectacled art-gallery curator Jenny (Uma Thurman). He asks her out, she says no, he retrieves her bag from a purse snatcher and a romance is suddenly born. Soon, they’re hot and heavy, and Jenny decides to reveal her true self: 1) she’s actually G-Girl, a kick-ass, sexy superheroine, and 2) she’s mildly psychotic, needy, clingy and jealous. While the former factoid turns Matt on and fuels his passion, the latter is enough to (quite literally) send him running for the hills. The only problem is Jenny’s reluctance to let go or move on. And Matt soon learns that being on the wrong end of a scorned superheroine is a pretty terrifying place to be.

Flitting about on the sidelines are two guys who try, in their misguided ways, to help Matt. One is his roguish, sex-starved best friend, Vaughn (Rainn Wilson), who promotes the love-her-and-leave-her-immediately approach. The other is Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard), G-Girl’s brilliantly dry arch-nemesis, who wants Matt to help him strip her of her powers…which, of course, would make Matt’s post-breakup life a lot less scary.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the movie, except that it was a great way to spend 96 minutes. The dialogue felt fresh and lively. The situations were clever and inventive. The soundtrack, which I’ll be buying as soon as it’s released, is fantastic. Even the animated closing credits were fun.

The performances—from Thurman and Izzard, especially—were comically terrific. When a theater full of critics busts out laughing, repeatedly, you know you’ve got something. Though the arc of the film is fairly predictable, the action clipped along nicely and never felt stagnant. My only complaint would perhaps be: not enough Wanda Sykes, who kind of gets left out in her extended cameo as Matt’s boss.

Sure, you have to suspend your disbelief and swallow some implausibilities, but when you’re walking into a movie where an Average Joe dates a woman who can fly, lift a car with one finger and have sex in mid-air, what else would you expect?

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