Movie review: What's Your Number?

WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?
An outrageous romantic comedy

Ring in the New Year with a fresh and funny tale about dating, relationships and life as Anna Faris (Scary Movie Franchise, The House Bunny) and Chris Evans (Fantastic Four, Captain America) come together in a hilarious quest for "the one" in WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? Unrated Ex-tended Cut, debuting on Blu-ray and DVD January 10 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

After reading a magazine article that insists if a woman has slept with at least 20 people that they have already missed Mr. Right, marketing executive Ally Darling (Anna Faris) begins to panic, thinking that she will be alone forever. With the help of her hunky new neighbor (Chris Evans), Ally starts tracking down all her ex-boyfriends, hoping to find her real true love while she helps him escape his latest fling. Hilarious hijinks and adventure ensues as Ally goes on her wild search for the best "ex" of her life, only to find what she is looking has been right in front of her all along.

Featuring hysterical supporting performances from Chris Pratt (Moneyball, "Parks and Recreation"), Joel McHale ("The Soup", "Community") and Andy Samberg ("Saturday Night Live", Hot Rod), WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? is based on the book "20 Times A Lady" by Karen Bosnak and will be available as a Blu-ray combo pack and single disc DVD. Flaunting an unrated extended cut of the film and loaded with laugh-out-loud bonus material including new expanded flashback dates and gag reel, the Blu-ray combo pack and single disc DVD will be available for an average retail price of $29.99 and $19.99 respectively.

Since I don't "date" anymore, a "date night movie" just doesn't appeal to me. But...if you're looking for a funny girl-talk movie to watch with your female friends and have a good belly-laugh or two, you can do much worse than WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?

Let me say right off the bat that this is predictable territory. Nothing new here. A woman is looking for Mr. Right and discovers before it's too late that he was right under her nose the whole time. It's been done to death, and you know it as soon as "the hunky new neighbor" walks in the door. Yawn.

I will even go so far as to say that I almost stopped watching this movie about fifteen or twenty minutes in. The lead female character Ally (Anna Faris) reads a magazine article that says the average woman has slept with (insert any number here). In a moment of boredom, Ally makes a list of all the men she's slept with in her short single life and is shocked when that number is so much higher than the magazine article states is normal.

So instead of increasing that number and labeling herself a slut, Ally embarks on a quest to rediscover her old flames on the chance that she actually passed up Mr. Right long ago, or that perhaps some of them have changed over the years and may be right for her after all.

This is a very narrow and flawed view of relationships and the search for someone to spend the rest of your life with.

But WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER? isn't the real world. This is fiction turned into a movie. So a great deal of suspension of disbelief is required to fully enjoy it.

And maybe I myself became a cliche when the "hunky new neighbor" walked on the screen, because he's the only reason I kept watching this silly movie. I knew without doubt that they would end up together, but hoped there would be some funny bits in between.

I'm happy to report that there were a lot of funny bits in between. The hunk happens to be good at Internet searching, and Ally strikes a bargain with him to help track down her 19 bed partners so she can reconnect with them to see what she missed. Yeah, you really have to get over that cutesy, convenient plotline to really enjoy this movie, but once you do, you find yourself as hooked as Ally to see how those "old flames" are faring today and if there's still any spark left. It definitely had me thinking about my own past relationships and how things might have been different or what they are like today.

Anyway, suffice it to say that the search turns up some comedic moments as well as some romantic ones, and this is after all a romantic comedy. The fact that some of the comedy is ill-timed and just juvenile doesn't take away too much enjoyment. For movie night with the gal pals, this will do nicely. Just don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.

But I know everyone has different tastes, and if this kind of thing is right up your alley, then you might enjoy the Dating Survival Kit on the movie's web page. There's also a Douche-O-Meter if you want to find out if your current flame is right for you. Just remember this is all in fun. :)