With so many people vying to have their ideas made into films, it's always struck me funny that Hollywood comes up with so many lame, boring and downright inane films on a consistent basis. I'm not talking about Die Hard on a "fill in the blank," but rather those ostensibly high-concept pieces that crash and burn, never making it off the runway due to any number of factors, but many of which suck in the script stage and continue sucking all the way until they land in the multiplexes. One such offender would be this summer's bomb My Super Ex-Girlfriend: neat idea on the surface -- neurotic super-heroine engages in typical rom-com shenanigans -- that was horribly muffed by director Ivan Reitman, screenwriter Don Payne and the assembled cast.

You know you're in trouble when your two leads generate as much chemistry as a wet matchbook -- Uma Thurman (who looks pretty awful in a few scenes) stars as Jenny Johnson, a mild-mannered New Yorker whose alter-ego, G-Girl, flits around the Big Apple saving lives and stopping evil. When she meets up with architect Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), the pair thinks they've each found their perfect match. Matt suspects something might be a little off about Jenny, but it's not until he elects to break up with her and start dating Hannah, a co-worker (Anna Faris), that Matt discovers the depths of her neediness. Throw in a lovelorn super-villain, Professor Bedlam (an utterly wasted Eddie Izzard), and Matt's horn-dog best friend Vaughn (a woefully miscast Rainn Wilson) and you've got the makings of one spectacularly bland summer tent-pole misfire.

The key problem with My Super Ex-Girlfriend is that for all of the relationship drama, you really don't end up giving much of a shit about the characters and as any novice screenwriter would tell you, if you're making a film hinging on the interaction between individuals, it really helps sell the thing if those people are engaging and compelling. Not so here, which only magnifies the failure of Reitman to successfully fuse the serio-comic action stuff with the more traditional rom-com cutesy fluff; it's a good idea but one that feels half-baked, as though the filmmakers just figured audiences would forgive the gaps and not notice the wildly varying approaches from each of the actors onscreen.

A big fat summertime dud, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is sporadically entertaining and occasionally involving, but those moments are few and far between. I can't fathom how someone with as many comedic gems under his belt as Ivan Reitman agreed to hop on board this trainwreck. It's easily one of the worst flicks he's ever been associated with -- even fans of Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson should probably hold out for cable before ever plunking down $20 for a DVD.

The Video:

My Super Ex-Girlfriend packs two flavors onto one flipper disc: one side sports a near-spotless 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that doesn't have any detectable flaws and the second side is outfitted with a (full body shudder) 1.33:1 fullscreen transfer. Pick your poison but both presentations look very, very sharp.

With plenty of action sequences to keep the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack hoppin', My Super Ex-Girlfriend sounds as good as it looks -- active bass, immersive surround activity and clean, distortion-free dialogue emanates primarily from the front trio of speakers. A Spanish and French Dolby 2.0 stereo soundtrack is included, as are optional English and Spanish subtitles.

The paltry box office performance probably resulted in the meager selection of bonus features -- five deleted scenes are presented, all in anamorphic widescreen and four of which have Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks; the deleted scenes are playable separately or all together. A music video for Molly McQueen's "No Sleep 2 Nite" finishes up the widescreen side and you have to flip the disc over to the fullscreen side for the remainder of the supplements, which would be the film's theatrical trailer, presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, and a two minute, 12 second "extended shark sequence" that helpfully presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and anamorphic widescreen (figure that one out).

A big fat summertime dud, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is sporadically entertaining and occasionally involving, but those moments are few and far between. I can't fathom how someone with as many comedic gems under his belt as Ivan Reitman agreed to hop on board this trainwreck. It's easily one of the worst flicks he's ever been associated with -- even fans of Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson should probably hold out for cable before ever plunking down $20 for a DVD. Rent it, if you must.