BY ABIGAIL GRABER

In print | January 31, 2008

I stared at a blank computer screen for 20 minutes before I could start reviewing “27 Dresses.” Why was I blocked? Bad reviews are always the easiest to bang out, and to alleviate the suspense, I can tell you right now that this one was gonna be a doozy. The obnoxious characters! The flat punchlines! The bedraggled narrative arc! James Marsden’s preternaturally white teeth! I should have been able to rhapsodize at length about the death of the American romantic comedy (long live England!). I could have waxed eternal on my frustration with stereotyped women. I might have bored you to tears with more comments about teeth. So why couldn’t I?

And then it hit me. I already wrote this review. I wrote it three years ago. It was a dark and stormy night (okay, probably not). There was a movie called “The Wedding Date.” There were obnoxious characters. Flat punchlines galore. A narrative arc that the dog dragged in. My memory is hazier on the teeth situation, but orthodontia aside, there’s not one comment I would make about “27 Dresses” that I didn’t get out of my system on the last go.

And so now all I can think is, “Ugh, this again?”

Not the kind of reaction Katherine Heigl wants to be inspiring with her sophomore film. (Well, IMDb informs me that she was in a number of films before last summer’s “Knocked Up,” but I think it’s lying. But now my curiosity is piqued by the undiscovered classic “Zyzzyx Rd.” and the “shocking, tragic twist” to its “DEATH OF A SALESMAN meets LOLITA ending!” Sweet! And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

To be fair to Heigl, acting is not this film’s Achilles’ Heel. In fact, cast chemistry is what keeps this sucker afloat. A goofy Heigl looks like she’s having a blast as Jane, a human doormat who agrees to plan her sister’s wedding to her boss, for whom she secretly pines. Heigl masters the art of the fake smile, the grimace, the obligatory scene were she does drunken karaoke on top of a bar — she seems born for slapstick, and one waits in vain for a moment when she might get to show off that talent. Marsden is a better actor than the part he is given, that of Kevin, a cynical weddings columnist who hopes to use Jane’s story — she’s been a bridesmaid 27 times — as his ticket to big-time feature writing. Everyone in the supporting cast (Edward Burns as Jane’s boss and Malin Akerman as Jane’s self-absorbed sister) clicks onscreen, and I’m sure that they all have great comic timing, if only screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna gave them any opportunity to show it off.

No, this film’s Achilles’ Heel is the humor. Its Achilles’ Shin is the character development. Its Achilles’ Thigh Fat That Won’t Go Away No Matter How Many Lunges You Do is pretty much everything else. McKenna’s last project was “The Devil Wear’s Prada,” and if you want to see a smart, sexy, sophisticated film about dresses, that’s the ticket. “27 Dresses” is, in comparison, a half-hearted knockoff.

McKenna tries so hard to throw out a laugh, but seems comedically constipated — the jokes just don’t come out. The romance is equally problematic. The “I hate you/I love you” dance is harder to pull off than Jane Austen makes it seem, and McKenna ain’t Jane Austen. The future lovers can dislike each other, but it’s paramount that they not be actually dislikable. Which Kevin is. Jane has it right when, after suffering through a barrage of Kevin’s cynical cliches about love, she rolls her eyes and comments, “How refreshing, a man who doesn’t believe in marriage.” McKenna should pick up some of that attitude, because Kevin’s obnoxious cynicism, not to mention his complete lack of journalistic ethics (Jane never finds out that he’s profiling her until his humiliating story is published) makes him a totally unsympathetic suitor for Jane’s hand.

Add the fact that Jane and Kevin only sleep together when they’re both horribly drunk (Wham! Flashback to “The Wedding Date!” Why, God, why?!), and that his apology to her for his article is more about him feeling better than her (“Here, take this expensive thing I bought you so that I don’t feel so bad”) and you’ll be rooting for Jane’s boss to come around. Given those circumstances — no romance and no comedy — all this movie is, is not much fun with a dick and Jane.

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