What's Your Number? is a romantic-comedy
with an interesting premise that promised a lot of comedic
potential. The story focuses on Ally Darling (Anna Faris), a
recently unemployed marketing person (who has almost no interest in the
subject), who stumbles upon an article in a magazine that claims
most women have 10 partners in their lifetime before finding
"The One"... she looks at the number and thinks "That low?" Ally
decides to make a list with every guy she has ever slept with.
Her number is: 19. She then becomes determined to sleep with no more men until she
finds the one who will marry her. Unfortunately for her, she
ends up sleeping with her ex-boss (Joel McHale), who isn't
exactly high on her priority marrying list (you know, should she
actually have one).
Her new mission
becomes to seek out every ex she's ever dated to see if she can
find her future husband with a past mistake! Um... yeah. Good luck
with that.
Joining Ally in her new
quest to find a future husband by revisiting some
past-relationship-failures is the hunky dude across the
apartment-floor Colin Shea (Chris Evans), who is an attractive
muscle-ripped womanizer who has a one-night-stand every day (or
is it night?), and who becomes quick to befriend Ally despite
her insistence that she won't be sleeping with him. Colin has
the know-how to track down all of her ex flames and he does
exactly that. Ally and Colin have great chemistry together
despite the fact that he sleeps with a different woman every
night and she is determined to not sleep with another man ever. Naturally, all of
this makes one wonder who she might wind up with by the end of
the movie. Sarcasm then enters the room.
The movie follows
almost every cliché in the romantic comedy genre. Both
screenwriters, Gabrielle Allan & Jennifer Crittenden, seem
to have a good understanding of the basics in rom-com territory.
To their credit is the fact the movie is never exactly boring
despite its predictability. The characters do toss out some
surprising jokes and occasional vulgarity, unusual for this type
of film, but the actual plot structure is no different from lots
of the films in this genre... to the point where it just feels
like a retread: A long and uninvolved retread. You constantly have a
strange feeling of deja-vu. I feel like I have watched this
movie too many times already and the characters aren't
distinctive enough to make this particular story stand apart
from the already crowded street of other disingenuous rom-coms.
Despite the lack of
truly interesting characters the best element of the movie is
the lead performances. Anna Faris continues her trend of being
unbelievably charming, cute, and inherently likeable in a
mediocre movie. Chris Evans turns out to be a well-cast charmer
with enough nice-dude-vibes despite the scripted element of
being someone who sleeps with different women constantly... Ally
hopefully realizes that if she ends up being with charmer Colin
she'll want strict STD testing. He was sleeping with another
woman the previous night... and countless other women all of
those other previous night's too. Just thought it seemed worth
observing this aspect of the potentially sad sequel.
Production-wise... what's
there to say? It's a glossy looking movie. It has what most call
"Hollywood" production values. It's all so unimaginative though.
It doesn't feel creative. There might be high-end qualities
contributing to this movie's success but it feels like it might
have been done through obligation more than it was done in a
quest for artistry.
The weakest and most
disappointing thing about this movie is that it is supposed to
be comedic. It isn't anywhere near as funny as it wants to be.
The movie has big cuteness factors but the jokes seem to
constantly fall flat. There wasn't a single moment during What's Your Number?
where I laughed out loud. That's hardly a reaction most viewers
would want with a comedy.
This wasn't exactly
a successful movie. It was too "by-the-numbers" to stand out
with genuine distinction. It does feature cute performances by
Anna Faris and Chris Evans. Somehow the premise manages to keep
things interesting from beginning to end but nothing really
makes much of an impression by the time the credits begin to
roll. See this if nothing else is on TV. It's decent, cute
entertainment, but nothing more than its bunny-inspired fluff.
The Blu-ray:
Video:
At least the film looks
great on Blu-ray. Guys will be pleased with the adorable Anna
Faris in High Definition while Girls won't mind seeing Chris
Evans wrapped up in nothing but a small towel... also in High
Definition. The film is presented with a 1.85:1 AVC transfer
with a bit-rate average of 30 MBPS. This translates to a
pleasant image with good color reproduction, strong resolution,
and other elements of sparkling clarity throughout. The film
looks totally modern with no hint of glaring print-problems or
the like. It's a good preservation of how What's Your Number?
surely looked in the cinema.
Audio:
The audio presentation
isn't quite as pleasant. It's a nice, clean, dialogue-friendly
5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio experience but the surrounds aren't used
as effectively as one might be expecting. The occasional sound
effect is used and the music is slightly enveloping but it
mostly stays as a front-heavy mix.
This release also
contains English Descriptive and French Audio in 5.1 Dolby
Digital. Subtitles are included in English (SDH) for the deaf
and hard of hearing and Spanish.
Please Note: The Images in this Review are from the DVD edition of
the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack.
Extras:
The main extra is an extended
version of the film that runs a total of 1:57:14 (a
decent bit longer than the theatrical version -- which clocked
in at 1:46:13). The extended cut is simply more of the same but
it is worth watching if you are going to experience the film.
Deleted Scenes (17:05) are presented
in AVC but the PQ was clearly affected from these clips being
taken from unfinished sources. There are a few scenes included
here, but it's a guess as to why anyone would want to watch so
many deleted moments from an already long "ex-tended" comedy.
Gag Reel (AVC, 7:15) has a
number of clips of cast/crew members joking with regards to
their own "number". The rest is the cast/crew slipping up but
it's not really that funny. It's worth noting that Chris Evans
seems to have the biggest potty-mouth of the bunch. This is
Funny?
Theatrical Trailer (AVC, 2:26)
Final Thoughts:
It might be rental-fare
for those who are curious but something tells me that most would
enjoy it as a late-night binge-TV viewing. What's Your Number? has
cute leading performers and a fun premise but what it does with
these aspects doesn't seem worth the time that is spent. Sadly,
this was just another disappointing Anna Faris comedy. Rent
It.
Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.