Another day, another dud romantic comedy. Mark Mylod’s What’s Your Number? shamefully squanders a talented cast and great Boston locations for an overly long, extremely undernourished comedy whose story is predictable and its ending blueprinted long before we get to the inevitable final clinch. Even romantics may find it tough going to ferret out something to like about all of the crude, obvious plot turns that eventually push the film’s two stars into each other’s arms.
What’s Your Number? (Blu-ray Combo Pack)
Directed by Mark Mylod
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2011
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 106/117 minutes
Rating: R/NR
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 French
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish
Region: A
MSRP: $ 39.99
Release Date: January 10, 2012
Review Date: January 11, 2012
The Film
2/5
Horrified that she’s slept with twenty different men and not found a single one of them worthy of getting serious about, newly fired marketer Ally Darling (Anna Faris) decides that she won’t sleep with anyone new, not even the hunky, interested next door neighbor Colin Shea (Chris Evans), before she revisits all of her twenty previous conquests to see if maybe there’s isn’t something marriageable about one of them. Her quest takes her from a Washington lobbyist (Anthony Mackie) to a millionaire philanthropist (Dave Annable) with some notable disastrous reunions (Andy Samberg, Chris Pratt, Martin Freeman, Thomas Lennon, Joel McHale) along the way.
Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden’s script is a slipshod affair: for every gag that works (all three of them), there are a dozen that don’t, and all of the casual nudity (star Chris Evans is out of his clothes for much of the movie; all of that training for Captain America was not in vain), suggestive sexual kinks (finger sniffers, puppet blow jobs), and unfussy profanity in the world aren’t going to turn this dross into gold. Director Mark Mylod presents some (but not all) of Ally’s flashbacks to her sexual liaisons with these guys in a shrunken screen motif that isn’t cinematically clever but is rather distracting and unnecessary (better jokes would have helped, of course). The film’s best moments are the most genuine ones when Ally and Colin do things together for fun and gradually grow closer. It’s in those moments that the film approaches a genuine romantic comedy without inert farcical gimmicks. Of course, seventy minutes in when these scenes happen, it doesn’t take the screenwriters more than one scene to tear the couple apart for the dumbest of reasons only to lead to a long, long road back to where they were at mid-movie. There is one running gag that works – the series of unexpected encounters with her former boy friend “Disgusting Donald” (Chris Pratt) though, as is usual in modern comedies, the filmmakers can’t resist going to the well once too often making the final use of the gag a nonsensical fizzle.
Anna Faris can be a bubbly comic actress, but she’s playing something of a loser here and never manages to make her Ally bright, charming, or very desirable. There’s no great rooting interest to see her ditzy blonde open her eyes and see happiness staring her in the face via the total package played by Chris Evans. His shift from whore dog to committed boy friend seems more than abrupt, however, but that’s another weak aspect of the script and not a fault of his performance. Also not very likable is Ally's selfish sister Daisy Darling played Ari Graynor. True, she’s bonkers from her impending nuptials, but her silly lack of bravado in dealing with the hardly threatening mother of Blythe Danner is another aspect of the farce that simply doesn’t work, either due to writing or casting or both. Dave Annable plays another man in Ally’s life who seems too good to be true, but her reasons for declining his companionship offer seem tepid and unfathomable, all the more reason to find the movie just a conglomeration of implausible ineptitude.
Video Quality
4.5/5
The film is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is offered in 1080p resolution using the AVC codec. Sharpness is generally excellent, and color is richly saturated and appealing. Flesh tones seem very natural throughout. Black levels aren’t the best, and there are occasional scenes where contrast turns the image a trifle milky for no perceptible reason. The film has been divided into 28 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix has a somewhat husky quality to it that makes dialogue sometimes take on a rough and unappetizing sound. There is more surround envelopment in the fronts and rears than one usually finds in romantic comedies, and Aaron Zigman’s music score and the pop tunes that are sprinkled throughout wrap through the soundfield with surety.
Special Features
2/5
The disc offers both the theatrical cut (106 minutes) or the unrated extended edition (117 minutes which is the version viewed for this review). The chapter headings and bonus features are the same for both versions of the film.
There are eight deleted scenes which can be viewed separately or in one 17-minute grouping. They’re in 1080p.
The gag reel runs 7 ¼ minutes in 1080p.
The 1080p theatrical trailer runs for 2 ½ minutes.
There are promo trailers for The Big Year, The Sitter, and In Time.
The second disc in the set is the combination DVD/digital copy of the movie. Enclosed are instructions for installation of the digital copy on Mac and PC devices.
In Conclusion
2/5 (not an average)
The romantic farce What’s Your Number? wastes an attractive, talented cast on a silly situation that wouldn’t sustain a half hour situation comedy episode, much less a feature film. Good audio and video are no compensation for lackluster comic ideas and generally gauche presentation.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
