My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006) (Ivan Reitman)

A romantic comedy with a superhero is a great concept. “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” is written by television-writer Don Payne (which makes sense) and directed by veteran comedy director, Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters”, “Evolution”), who’s no stranger to mixing up the genres. With a premise as great as that, it manages to succumb to its lofty ambitions and become an adequately interesting story that was jazzed up by a creative mind and a fantastic performance. Although plagued by formulaic set-ups and the well-worn banality of predictable characterisations, it still manages to deliver a fun little flick.

It adopts the superhero and romantic comedy clichés and makes it a hybrid that’s intriguing in how it plays out but is not exactly inspired material. It just takes a tired genre and gives it an exciting new makeover in the form of G-Girl (Uma Thurman), a carbon copy of Superman right down to her Clark Kentish alter ego, the frumpy bookish curator Jenny Johnson. She meets Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), a blander-than-vanilla, all-round nice guy architect who ‘saves’ her handbag from a mugger. From there, we get the bittersweet getting-to-know-you stage where he finds a paranoid, jealous and overly neurotic side of her.

After he dumps her, he becomes victim to her constant annoyance and you never ever want to get a superhero aggrieved. Uma Thurman is an absolute delight in the movie. Although you could argue that her titular role is mildly supporting, with Luke Wilson’s being the central chump, her commitment to her character’s neurosis is undeniable and often illuminating. Throw in a subplot with an evil villain and you’ve got yourself a silly film with the right mixture of screwball and sentiment.

Rounding off the cast is the more annoying than usual horny but clueless best friend (Rainn Wilson), the coquettish new girlfriend (the always charming Anna Faris) and top-drawer comic talents in Wanda Sykes (in absolutely pointless scenes) and Eddie Izzard playing Matt’s boss and G-Girl’s arch-nemesis respectively. The ace comic talents and seasoned rom-com performers seem bored and jaded by their roles, but still pull off an ample job.

So despite a few faults, it manages to graft out some heartfelt and genuinely amusing chuckles. If you think you know what you’ll be getting with this film, you’re not bound to be surprised (unlike “Click”), it’s like Coke with its new lime twist, a familiar but interesting taste.

Rating 3 out of 5