Along Came Polly Reviews

Even though it has nothing to do with this movie, in 2016, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie finally split up. My wife was actually cheering as, from the very start, she was convinced that this couple would never last and she always believed that Jennifer Anniston was a much better choice. Well, I don’t agree with my wife and even though I have to admit that Anniston is really cute, in fact, she must be one of the most boring actress out there. The main problem I have with here is that,  even though she has been rather successful, 90% of the time, she just plays the same character who happens to be ‘the girlfriend of <insert famous actor>’. This movie was a fine example and, this time around, she was just playing ‘the girlfriend of Ben Stiller’. The worst thing was that, for this movie, she was actually playing the title character who was supposed to be some kind of ‘free-spirited’ woman but the squeaky clean Anniston was just not convincing whatsoever in this really boring comedy. It didn’t help that I never believed that these 2 characters really belonged with each other. In fact, the only thing I enjoyed was the late Philip Seymour Hoffman who was, as usual, pretty awesome in a rather small part. To conclude, even though this movie was quite successful at the box-office when it was released, it is in fact one of the weakest movies starring Anniston and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

Along Came Polly is your usual conventional by-the-numbers romantic comedy that is good for nothing more than a good laugh. As usual, these kinds of movies are reeled out frequently by the studios just to soak up some light money.

As the film opens, Reuben Feffer (Stiller) gets married to the girl of his dreams named Lisa (Messing). But while the two are enjoying their honeymoon, Lisa dumps Reuben for a muscle-bound nudist French scuba instructor (Azaria).

Reuben is heartbroken, but his best friend Sandy (Hoffman) encourages him to move on, get over Lisa and find someone else. At a formal party, he meets Polly Prince (Aniston) who was an old class mate of Reuben's. The two strike up a good friendship, although Reuben wants to take things further than that. But Polly, who's scared of commitment, is reluctant to move to the next level and troubles ensue.

Like I stated before, this is strictly a by-the-numbers affair that isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. There are a few good laughs, most of which are toilet oriented. Like most of Ben Stiller's films, his performance is good (although he always does the same type of role) and there are some funny, witty lines that he delivers. That said, the laughs are only occasional and there are very few that are actually memorable. And, like all movies in this vein, there are moments when the fun is over until the very end when things turn out okay. The same old formula is becoming very tiring!

Jennifer Aniston is at her usual standard here. She seemed to resemble her character from Friends in a sense. Philip Seymour Hoffman is actually pretty decent in an unusual change on his usual role. I never would have expected someone of his stature to pop up in a romantic comedy like this.

Along Came Polly was never meant to be anything groundbreaking or any sort of a masterpiece...and it isn't. That said, it isn't terrible either. I enjoyed the movie as it is told well and has some good gags (being from Australia, some of the Aussie gags had me in stitches). Nothing we haven't really seen before, but worth a rental at least.