Released: July 20th, 2007
Runtime: 1 hr. 50 min.
Ticket Price: $7.50 Matinee
Refreshments: Swedish Fish
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James & Jessica Biel
Director: Dennis Dugan
Rating: Check it Out When it Hits the Likes of HBO or Showtime – 
Synopsis: A firefighter who has lost his wife finds out that his children will not receive his pension if something happened to him on the job, due to his error in waiting to long to make the switch. To get around this he needs to be married, but with no prospects, he asks his buddy to be his domestic partner. In doing so, they inadvertently become front-page news. This leads to some outrageous situations where they must try to keep the façade up, especially when a government worker starts to become suspicious of that their relationship is a fake.
Review: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry should have been titled, I Now Pronounce You Completely Unfunny. It wasn’t Norbit bad, but it was trying really hard. If jokes based on gay stereotypes, Adam Sandler’s character incessantly wondering why everyone assumes he’s the girl in the relationship and fat jokes are your thing, then by all means, check out Chuck and Larry. If not, then this movie should be avoided.
The only redeeming thing about this movie is Jessica Biel (Next, The Illusionist), who is, as always, beautiful to watch on screen. She does what she can with the material provided, but mostly her assets, other than acting, are on display, as she is basically just eye candy for the junior high and high school boys that will probably be this movie’s core audience.
Unfortunately for them, they will also get an eye full of way more of Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible, Dawn of the Dead) than you would ever care to see, along with a few others. This, along with much of the attempted humor, makes me wonder, how could’ve this movie received a PG-13 rating? Other than, without it, their core audience wouldn’t have been able to see it.
I laughed a couple of times and chuckled a couple more, but that isn’t a whole lot over the course of an hour and 50 minutes. When a theater is relatively full, as it was here, and a movie is actually funny, you usually hear one giant laugh in unison or you don’t really notice it at all because of that. But, when a movie isn’t funny, as it was here, you hear a smattering of laughter here and there. It is also never a good sign when you laugh more in the 10 minutes of previews for upcoming comedies than you do in the whole movie you have just paid to see. Not that any of those upcoming flicks will actually live up to their trailers, it just isn’t a good sign.
You may want to check it out when it hits the likes of HBO or Showtime, but only if you are one of those few comedically demented people mentioned above or you just have no life and need something to pass the time on some lonely Saturday night. But, even then, there has to be something else on that is better, doesn’t there?
Feel free to pronounce your thoughts on Chuck and Larry in the comments.
