More Ugly than True

"The Ugly Truth" falls into the same category as "Superbad" - a category of  over-the-top, vulgar wannabes.

While I didn't expect anything particularly thought-provoking, I did expect to have fun watching Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler hate each other and then fall in love. There's a long tradition of hateful relationships, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, for one, and audiences love to hate their love/hate relationship. 

"The Ugly Truth" offers that, topped with (my new favorite word) scads of scategorical humor, vibrating underwear and plenty of R-rated dialogue. I loved "Old School." I loved "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." I am not against the occasional naked butt or f-bomb. But if it's easy to see that an R-rating was the goal and a PG-13 could have given that same plot a little classier, I'm really turned off.

I even left the theater in a bad mood.

Butler gives an admirable performance, despite his character's despicable opinions about women, and as usual, he's convincing. Heigl has found her place among the Sandra Bullocks and Lauren Grahams of the world as a neurotic. But how many times must we watch a neurotic woman make a fool of herself over a man? For a long time, it was the lonely, frustrated housewife that needed to be set free. Now, we have the successful, gorgeous career woman - frigid, unhappy and cat-owning. I guess women only have two categories. 

There were funny moments, sure. And some sincerity, OK.

Couldn't save it in my eyes.