The unexpected and deserved success of The Hangover last year has, alas, inspired a raft of pale imitations; of these She’s Out of My League is the stand out disaster. A dull and dull-witted bromance, the film is too cheesy for any respectable bloke, too patronising for the ladies and too slight for all but the most intellectually challenged organisms.
The plot couldn’t be more infantile; ne-er-do-well airport security wonk Kirk (Jay Baruchel) hooks up with the impossibly glamorous Molly (Alice Eve) and then spends the rest of the movie wondering aloud what she could possibly see in him. To facilitate this enterprise, Kirk is surrounded by a gaggle of male stereotypes – the horn dog one, the wisecracking one, the sappy one – and a ‘crazy’ family.
It’s a mark of how much faith the filmmakers have in their material that they feel obliged to introduce new characters – here’s the bitch ex-girlfriend, here’s the romantic heroine’s unorthodox friend - in practically every scene; by the end the ensemble is so large it’s like Nicholas Nickleby with brain damage.
Like so many entries in this increasingly unlovely subgenre, She’s Out of My League is predicated on the idea of the perfect woman; Molly has bouncy breasts, blonde hair and no discernable personality traits whatsoever. In an outrageous cheat, every time the happy couple meet up, there’s a musical montage; every time she opens her mouth, the band strikes up. We’d say Ms. Alice Eve’s performance was the least dignified of the year if we hadn’t already watched her jiggling through Sex And The City 2, replete with ludicrous Blarney accent.