She's Out Of My League

C'mon, dude: This movie is beneath you.

By AARON MESH

Search your memory, and you may recall a story about how on the set of Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow bet a roly-poly kid with a grizzly laugh that he could turn him into a movie star. Seven years later, Seth Rogen anchored the $148 million-grossing Knocked Up, and cemented the era's comedy template: The no-account schlemiel gets the blond shiksa. Just three more years, and the law of diminishing returns decrees that it is Jay Baruchel's turn. Now, I've always liked Baruchel, enjoyed his marionette-on-strings twitchiness in Apatow's Undeclared, and never held it against him that he looked like what would happen if you cross-bred Mark Ruffalo with a ferret. For She's Out of My League, he's been combed free of tics to play the role of…let me look it up…oh, here it is…Kirk, an airport security officer barely guarding planes in Pittsburgh. Through the Kirk-captained metal detector strolls Molly (Alice Eve), who recalls a young Nicole Kidman with a larger chest. She asks him out on a date and despite setbacks involving premature ejaculation and a large dog, she soon joins the chorus of people declaring that Kirk is "the best person I know" and very funny and just all-around swell.

Let me ask you: Judging from the synopsis I have just provided, do you honestly think that Kirk is the best guy anybody knows, or funny, or possessed of any qualities whatsoever? If so, you have more faith in him than the movie does. On most occasions when Kirk is required to be charming or seductive or even engage in small talk, director Jim Field Smith cuts away to the long-distance reactions of his pals. I'm not sure the guy even tells a joke. The misreading of Woody Allen—who, whatever else you might say about him, was always very cocksure—continues to the point where the twerp doesn't even need to be funny to get the girl anymore; we are expected to take her interest on faith, like the Virgin Birth. I find the Virgin Birth more plausible. As She's Out of My League strenuously insists that true love can conquer such piddling concerns as wildly unequal social status and the complete lack of chemistry, you may find yourself reaching the depressing thought that Jay Baruchel is better than this. And then an even more depressing thought: Maybe he's not. R.

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SEE IT:

Cedar Hills, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard and Wilsonville.

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