Bad timing allowed “What’s Your Number?,” a mildly raunchy romantic comedy about a woman lamenting her sexual history as she resolves to finally save herself for Mr. Right, to come out mere months after the too-similar “Bridesmaids.”
And bad timing is evident on the screen, as well, as this c
omedy struggles to find a tone, find its footing, find any comic momentum that two generally funny leads could carry across the comic finish line.
Anna Faris and Chris Evans don’t have enough scenes together, don’t have enough funny lines and aren’t surrounded by enough funny people to give this “Bridesmaids” lite a shot.
Faris plays 30-something Ally Darling, who uses the day she is laid off from her marketing job to read an article detailing research that shows that women who have had more than 20 sexual partners are less likely to marry.
Ally tallies herself up, figures she’s at “19,” and promptly gets drunk, sleeps with her creep of an ex-boss, and now must track down her previous 19 so that she can rekindle an old flame and not cross that Marie Claire magazine-decreed number of doom.
Her assistant in this search (yes, she starts on Facebook) is her randy player of a neighbor, Colin, played with shirtless (and often pantless) charm by Evans.
He’s been ducking into Ally’s apartment so as to not have breakfast with each night’s conquests.
A cute running gag: Ally has flashbacks to her exes, then meets them today and each is odd in his own odd way. And she was odd around them in an effort to court them: When she dated a Brit, she faked a British accent to seal the deal.
Ally is also helping her younger sister, Daisy (Ari Graynor), prep for her wedding, giving Faris a chance to show off her “drunk” engagement toast shtick.
The banter with Evans is often first-rate (“If these girls can’t see you coming, they deserve what they get!”). There’s just not enough of it.
It’s a movie that lacks urgency, despite Ally’s protests that “I’m running out of time, money and viable eggs” during her manhunt. The director, “Entourage” vet Mark Mylod, doesn’t have either a light touch or a pound-out-the-laughs feel for the material, so lines are lost, situations fail to deliver and Faris and Evans never quite click the way the script ordains that they must.
Thus, “What’s Your Number?” fails to add up to anything we haven’t seen before, recently and now available on video.
“What’s Your Number?” (1½ stars)
Bad timing pits local girl Anna Faris’ so-so romantic comedy against “Bridesmaids,” the unexpected hit chick flick of the summer. “Number” fails to click and we feel like we’ve seen it – done better — before.
Rated: R for sexual content and language.
Showing: Alderwood, Cinebarre, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood, Meridian, Metro and Oak Tree.
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