Laughs and risque moments make for odd mix

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 21, 2006

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a strange hybrid: part kiddie superhero adventure movie; part romantic sex comedy.

Ivan Reitman, who directed it, had his biggest success with the two Ghostbusters films, which combined laughs with some sexy moments.

Clearly he's hoping lightning will strike twice with My Super Ex-Girlfriend, but the laughs are fewer here and, strangely, an air of meanness eventually begins hovering around the title character which is not what you want to happen to the star of the film.

Isn't a superhero supposed to be above pettiness?

Although it's rated PG-13, there's a surprising amount of sexuality in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, not so super an idea for parents who may have thought they were buying tickets to something akin to Wonder Woman.

Uma Thurman is the woman who flies through the air in response to the latest calamity, whether it's stopping jewel thieves by picking up their car and flying it through the air with them inside or extinguishing a blaze atop a high-rise by spinning so fast in mid-air that the flames blow out.

Bullets bounce off her. Everyone in New York City is in thrall to her and knows her as G-Girl. (Hmm.) But by day she's plain Jenny Johnson, art gallery curator.

It's Jenny whom architect Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) meets on the subway. At first put off by his forwardness, she eventually calls him because, way deep down, Jenny wants to be just an ordinary girl.

On their first date at a fancy restaurant he thinks she's sweet. He believes he may finally have found the perfect girlfriend -- no matter that she disappeared to the powder room for a long time, when in truth she was secretly heading to a rescue mission and returns with a smudge on her face.

When Matt eventually learns that Jenny is also G-Girl, he thinks he is the luckiest man in the world.

However, soon pesky little things emerge to threaten their relationship. Their lovemaking leaves him exhausted. She's demanding. She needs to be needed. When Matt begins falling for a co-worker, the pretty Hannah (Anna Faris of Scary Movie fame), Matt tries to break off with Jenny.

But Jenny is not someone who is going to go quietly into the night. A woman scorned, she tells Matt angrily, "You're going to regret this" and then proceeds to plot spiteful revenge.

Soon she's "dropping in" on Matt by slamming her way into his apartment through the ceiling, relentlessly following him, sending a toothy shark to attack him when he's at his most vulnerable. The shark attack is actually quite a scary sight.

On the sidelines is Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard), a character who is supposed to be the vindictive villain of the piece, but comes across as rather fey and silly. He wants Matt's help in neutralizing G-Girl by stripping her of her super powers, although it later turns out he has an ulterior motive.

So what we have in My Super Ex-Girlfriend is an odd mix of a not-so-funny sex farce, with the underpinnings of an adventure movie and a character that rapidly transforms from heroine to villain, at least through the middle third of the film.

It doesn't quite all fit together. The usually hilarious Wanda Sykes here is a pain as an tempermental finger-pointing boss who is always on the lookout for sexual harassment in the office.

And yet there are more than a few laugh-out-loud moments in Don Payne's script, some of which are a bit risque.

And if Thurman, a likable actress who must play mean part of the time, isn't the Wonder Woman one might have hoped, Faris handles the romantic angles of the story very nicely indeed.

mjanuson@projo.com / (401) 277-7276

**1/2

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Starring: Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, Wanda Sykes.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence, sexual situations, nudity, profanity, adult themes.