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Critics Just Not That Into Flick

'Good looks,' 'slick lines' can't save film

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 6, 2009 1:46 PM CST

(Newser) – Critics are unimpressed with He’s Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy based on the self-help book of the same name, which itself was based on a throwaway line from a Sex and the City episode. The film’s got “nothing more than good looks and a few slick lines,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. “Okay, Hollywood, we get it. Women want a wedding. Men don't like commitment. Can we please move on?”

Clocking in at an “overextended 2 hours and 12 minutes,” the flick is a “grotesque representation of female desire” that dissolves into “caricature,” Manohla Dargis writes in the New York Times. A more forgiving Betsy Sharkey, writing in the Los Angeles Times, calls the picture “a bit like a weightless swirl of cotton candy with a mere second of sweetness before it dissolves on your tongue. But then there's nothing wrong with cotton candy.”

[Images (3)]

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In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Jennifer Aniston, left, and Ben Affleck are shown in a scene from the New Line Cinema film 'He's Just Not That Into You.' (AP Photo/Darren Michaels)

In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Justin Long, left, and Ginnifer Goodwin are shown in a scene from the New Line Cinema film 'He's Just Not That Into You.' (AP Photo/Darren Michaels)

In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Kevin Connolly, left, and Scarlett Johansson are shown in a scene from the New Line Cinema film 'He's Just Not That Into You.' (AP Photo/Darren Michaels)

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Critics Just Not That Into Flick