Definitely, Maybe

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks

Directed by: Adam Brooks

RS: 2of 4 Stars

2008 Universal Pictures Romantic Comedy

I concede that there may be people who will cotton to this knockoff of TV's How I Met Your Mother. Me, I don't want to meet those people. Ryan Reynolds, a star still waiting to happen, plays a disillusioned ad guy (is there another kind?) with a precocious daughter (is there another kind?). Since the kid is played by Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin with no loss in solar energy, Daddy, on the eve of his divorce, is asked how he met Mommy. To stretch the movie that would have been over in five minutes out to feature length, he tells her about three major women in his life and asks her to guess which one became Mommy. Clearly, therapy will play a crucial role in this child's future. My whimsy tolerance would have exploded if writer-director Adam Brooks (he wrote the second Bridget Jones movie — the awful one) hadn't cast these roles with a keen eye for talent and beauty. Elizabeth Banks is better than good, Isla Fisher is better than funny, and Rachel Weisz, who hasn't been treated well by Hollywood (yikes, Eragon and Fred Claus) since she won an Oscar for The Constant Gardener, is a constant goddess. To sum up, Definitely, Maybe is crap with compensations.

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