Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) is a loser in love, but he scores big time when the attractive Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) falls for him after he heroically attempts to retrieve her purse from a mugger. Once the two get together, the sparks fly — and so does Jenny, who’s really New York’s own superhero G-Girl.
Matt’s new super sex life is exactly as you’d expect, and because this is a romantic comedy, all the details left out of conventional superhero tales are now revealed, like a nighttime in-flight romp over the city. At one point, Jenny gets so rough that she breaks the bed, then promises to get Matt a new one. “A new bed or a penis?” he replies.
While the sex is incredible, Matt just can’t get passed Jenny’s possessive, neurotic ways, which become more prominent whenever Matt is near his sexy coworker Hannah (Anna Faris). But breaking up with a superhero isn’t so easy, especially when she’s a mentally unstable one. The scorned Jenny goes on a vengeful rampage to destroy Matt’s life by busting a hole through his ceiling, using her heat vision to etch a foul word in his forehead, and throwing a live shark through a window at him. Matt must find a way to stop his ex from destroying his life, even if it means conspiring with G-Girl’s arch nemesis Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard).
Luke Wilson does a fine job as the emasculated straight man and seems at times to channel some of the late John Ritter’s ackward nervous ticks that make you so embarrassed for him that you have to look away. While the lead heroine role is nothing new for Thurman, playing one who’s also bipolar and psychotic (yet still incredibly sexy) is a nice spin. Both G-Girl’s super heroics and super vindictiveness are fun to watch as is the Zoolander-like finish.
MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND is anything but lighthearted and sappy. There’s plenty of hilarity surrounding Matt and Jenny’s courtship as well as the reaction to it from Matt’s best friend Vaughn (played wonderfully here by THE OFFICE‘s Rainn Wilson). Director Ivan Reitman really knows how to bring New York alive and in SUPER EX he revives the spirit of his 80’s comedies Ghostbusters and Stripes — a pleasant departure from today’s typical toilet humor offerings.
I went to this movie last night because my work was cancelled and it was the only thing even remotely interesting to me at the local theater. I was not expecting much, but ended up being pleasantly surprised. I dare say this comedy had more actual super-hero action than all three X-movies combined! A guest appearance by Wanda Sykes was just the icing on the cake.
Comment by Dave2 — August 2, 2006 @ 12:22 pm