'Good Luck' makes you want to upchuck

"Good Luck Chuck" is not a movie I want to review as much as I want to incinerate, a movie I want to dump in a toxic waste dump somewhere.

This misogynist soft-core porn film masquerading as a romantic comedy stars the terribly unfunny and uncharismatic Dane Cook as the title character, who, when he was a teen, had a hex put on him that decreed every woman he ever slept with would fall in love with the next man she met.

Now this, in and of itself, presents a series of problems for the women involved here, problems the movie never wants to address. What happens, for example, if the next man a woman meets after sleeping with Chuck is a child molester, a terrorist, or -- worst of all -- the producer of movies like this one? OK, never mind.

So what happens is women learn about Chuck's "charm" and they flock to him knowing that soon they will find wedded bliss for all eternity. Now this, in and of itself, presents a series of additional problems that the movie never wants to address. It assumes that all any woman wants is wedded bliss for all eternity. Not a career, not a life of her own, not any form of independence.

This is especially strange given the fact that all the women who want to avail themselves of Chuck's services are (with two notable exceptions), well, to use the vernacular, "babes." In fact, the movie goes out of its way to point out that the only real sin one can commit is to be physically unattractive. These women should not have any trouble getting a man without Chuck's assistance. OK, never mind.

Are there any problems the movie does want to address? Yes, it turns out. What happens when Chuck meets someone he is attracted to? The problem is if he makes any kind of move on her, she will, according to the hex, not fall in love with him but the next man she meets after him. Of course, there's an obvious solution to this: Find a way to break the hex, but for some reason this dolt has completely forgotten about the incident from his teen years. So we are doomed to this terribly unfunny courtship between Chuck and Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba, who deserves better material than this) that's based on the premise that the only way Chuck can win Cam is to stay away from her. OK, never mind.

The real hex placed on Chuck is that he is saddled with a best friend, Stu (Dan Fogler), a plastic surgeon who should have had charges of sexual assault filed against him by one or more of his patients years ago. Stu is a danger to Chuck's welfare and economic well-being. Although he was present at the spin-the-bottle party at which Chuck was hexed, Stu, too, fails to remember the incident and link it to Chuck's current plight. Also, he learns enough information about Cam to get Chuck to waste $17,000 when any normal person (working outside the limiting confines of this stupid plot) would have learned enough so that this money would never have been spent. OK, never mind.

I have two wishes after seeing this film. The first is that I have convinced you to avoid renting it, that watching C-Span cover an empty U.S. House chamber could be more entertaining, and the second wish is that Chuck's curse actually works on Jessica Alba and so her next time out she gets to make a good film.

Grade: F