Along Came Polly
Over the years, Ben Stiller‘s career has been, in my opinion, miss and miss. Stiller started as an SNL cast member in the late 80’s and had a very short lived TV show with his namesake. He gained further public eye by starring alongside the incredibly hot Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary. My problem with Stiller is his way of playing the SAME character in every movie he has ever been in. Even his roles in The Mystery Men and Zoolander aren’t a far cry from the slightly nervous straight-arrow guy who seems to always get dumped on. A little variety is typically expected from someone with a history of acting in a variety show. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows?
Now along comes Along Came Polly. Another TV actor stars beside Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, as the title character, Polly. Stiller’s character, Reuben Feffer, is a straight-lace, by-the-book stereotype who works as a risk analysis technician for a major insurance company. His honeymoon goes south when his new bride (Debra Messing) gets jiggy with an adventurous SCUBA instructor played by Hank Azaria. Stiller invests his thoughts and time into a ex-high school friend, Polly Prince (Aniston). Polly however is Reuben’s polar opposite: outgoing, headstrong and strong stomached. Hilarity was supposed to ensue as we join Reuben in his discovery that life is to be lived, not feared and there’s nothing wrong with taking risks.
Since there are no special effects, no overwhelming musical score and a truly predictable story, the focus should have been on the humor. Instead, the writers relied on overflowing toilets, blind ferrets and a daredevil austrailian to provide the laughs. No such luck. In fact, Hank Azaria’s masterful voice acting (Simpson’s) lended itself so perfectly to his french nudist instructor, that the brief few minutes we have with him are the only funny moments of the film.
I can’t recommend Along Came Polly, even as a mindless distraction on an otherwise boring Sunday afternoon. It is really beyond me how it placed itself as the number one movie in it’s second week. I can’t give it the worst rating, because it didn’t offend my intelligence, but on the same note, it numbed it.
