The combined star power of Vince Vaughn (
Wedding Crashers, Swingers) and Jennifer Aniston (
Bruce Almighty, The Good Girl) makes
The Break-Up a high-profile romantic comedy. Gary (Vaughn) and Brooke (Aniston) find that their brittle relationship may have reached the breaking point--but neither is willing to give up the condo they co-own. As their fighting grows increasingly bitter, neither is sure if they're fighting to get out of the relationship or to save it.
The Break-Up is an odd combination of realistic scenes that capture the harsh yet human ways that lovers can hurt each other, and broad comic scenes with a more farcical edge. Both types of scenes are entertaining on their own terms--the movie is never boring--but they don't fully mesh, and as a result it's hard to engage emotionally with either Gary or Brooke. But the sterling supporting cast--including Jon Favreau (
Wimbledon), Cole Hauser (
The Cave), Joey Lauren Adams (
Chasing Amy), John Michael Higgins (
A Mighty Wind), Justin Long (Dodgeball), Jason Bateman (
Arrested Development), Vincent D'Onofrio (
Happy Accidents), and the ever-delirious Judy Davis (
Husbands and Wives)--give every scene they're in a boost of comic energy. An uneven but enjoyable movie that may suffer from viewers having overly high expectations due to Vaughn and Aniston's celebrity. --
Bret Fetzer Along Came Polly
Opposites are forced to attract in Along Came Polly. Ben Stiller is a newlywed insurance risk-assessment analyst whose wife (Debra Messing, in a throwaway role) betrays him on their honeymoon. His uptight, play-it-safe lifestyle (which includes acute aversion to germs and irritable bowel syndrome) makes him seemingly incompatible with the spontaneous, free-spirited Polly (Jennifer Aniston), but writer-director John Hamburg (whose writing credits include the previous Stiller hits Meet the Parents and Zoolander) is determined to give them at least the appearance of romantic potential. No such luck. You will, however, get a few laughs from supporting players Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bryan Brown, and Alec Baldwin. The film is a dose of featherweight fluff that could've been better and could've been worse--surely no pairing of Stiller and Aniston can be a complete waste of time, right? Faint praise, perhaps, but fans of these mainstream funny-folk will enjoy this movie as a lazy weekend distraction. --Jeff Shannon