When Mark and I took a day trip to Columbia, we took advantage of our baby-free time by catching an afternoon movie. Mark indulged me, and we saw the only chick flick playing: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
Usually when I write a movie review, I check out Metacritic.com to see what other critics have said. In addition to aggregating reviews from a couple dozen newspapers, magazines and websites, it also assigns a numeric value to each review to give the movies a rank from 0 to 100.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past earned a 34, which is in the “Generally Negative Reviews” category.
Hmmm.
Well, here’s the thing. First of all, I like chick flicks. I enjoy romantic comedies. Second of all, I like to be entertained by movies, and that often (but not always, really!) means unrealistic situations that lead to unrealistic happy endings. Third, I went into this one with pretty low expectations.
And last but most important, I was so thrilled to have a day with Mark to celebrate our anniversary that everything seemed better than normal.
So, with all that said, I really enjoyed this movie. It was silly, cheesy, maybe even a little offensive – but you know what? It was fun. It was funny. It had Matthew McConaughey, playing . . . himself. And I liked it.
The basic premise is that Connor Mead, a celebrity photographer, is a playboy headed down the same path his late Uncle Wayne took through life. When he goes home for his younger brother’s wedding, he faces his first – and only – love and then just happens to be visited by several ghosts.
Like I said, McConaughey plays his usual slow-talking, charming man slut who surely has a heart of gold under those slick clothes and hard muscles. His childhood friend, first love and present-day romantic temptation is played by Jennifer Garner. She is sweet, she is cute, and I like her. Michael Douglas, as a Hugh Hefner-ish Uncle Wayne, is not sweet or cute. But he is really funny, playing his role with a wink and a sideways grin.
You’ve seen this story before – both the Christmas Carol story and the jerk guy turns into sweetheart for his woman story. But if you’re not opposed to seeing those stories combined into a cheese-fest, you might like this one, too.
But just to make sure you’re getting the full story, here are a few critic quotes:
- It’s gone well past cloying to see Matthew McConaughey play a ”charming cad.” (The more he pushes the charm, the more the cad shows through.) But even if you’ve tired of the star’s oily cocoa-butter narcissism, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past offers a solution, of sorts: It casts him as a studly photographer who is such a smarmy, dislikable [jerk] that the film doesn’t pretend you’re supposed to like him. (Entertainment Weekly)
- I’m almost embarrassed to admit I found “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” the season’s first genuine guilty pleasure. . . Like McConaughey’s love-’em-and-leave-’em photographer Connor Mead – who would qualify as self-parody if McConaughey weren’t that already in real life – there’s an almost irresistible cheesy charm to this unabashedly tacky spin on “A Christmas Carol.” (New York Post)
- Ghosts can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be a racy raunchfest or a sentimental celebration of soul mates. So it ends up being a sappy, sleazy hybrid. McConaughey reprises his cocky “player” persona to limited comic success. The lasting image after seeing it is his blindingly white teeth. The formulaic story evaporates faster than cotton candy, and it’s often as cloyingly sweet and tacky. (USA Today)
Wow . . . poor Matthew McConaughey. These critics don’t like him. They really don’t like him! (Please read that in my best Sally Fields voice.)
Have you seen this movie? What did you think? Was it as bad as they say? Or did you, like me, laugh in spite of all the cheese and sleaze?
I saw it, and, if it weren't for Michael Douglas, I think I might have walked out! Matthew McConaughey's character was just too disgusting for me to feel comfortable watching – I felt kind of dirty when I left! But I did like Jennifer Garner in it, and Michael Douglas saved the movie for me.
I don't get to see many movies in the theater, so I might also have just been grouchy that my movie money was going to that and not something more "redeeming."
I'm glad you liked it! Or, I'm glad you had a day out with Mark. :)
"…charming man slut…"
That's just genius, right there.
sorry, but i like matthew being the man slut. haha! i haven't seen this movie yet, but my guesses are that i'll have to watch it when samantha isn't around! (and probably ben too!) :-)
I kinda agree with Amy. If they left out all the half naked women and some of the other raunchy stuff it probably would have been one of my favorite movies.
This was NOT my favorite Matthew McConaughey movie! I did not find his character likeable at all. I did like Michael Douglas and thought it was a great character for him to play! I love romantic comedies, but this one did not leave me feeling happy. I have to say he is not my favorite actor, though, and I think I'm the only girl in the world that really doesn't think he's all that attractive – I know I'm weird!
Did Matthew get to go without a shirt? (just kidding;)
I'd never heard of that speech by Sally Field before — thanks for the link! Very funny. :)
I'm actually not a huge Matthew McConaughey fan either. I wanna say it's b/c he's too into himself and is the icky kind of charming, but I don't really know (I mean, I like Hugh Grant, and he might be considered that too — maybe I just like the British accent better than the southern drawl?? I have no idea). But since he does romantic comedies, I often end up seeing them. ;) The one I saw with him that was really awful though was "Failure to Launch." But I haven't seen this one yet. The comments about too much raunchiness are making me think of movies like "Wedding Crashers" (just the 1st one that came to mind; there are several) — so much of that is unnecessary and actually ruins what might be a good movie otherwise! When will Hollywood get it? The best movies leave that out (cases in point: While You Were Sleeping, Clueless, The Cutting Edge…)! I realize that's part of the story in this one, since it's his character, but I dunno how much of it is necessary for us to see… (again, haven't seen the movie; just going off comments;)
Oh my gosh… I just checked him out on imdb.com, and did you know he was originally considered as Jack for "Titanic"?? I don't think I could've seen him in that role… (sorry, getting off track here — I'll stop monopolizing your blog now…)
Haven't seen it yet, but I'm planning on renting it. I'm not all dreamy-eyed over Matthew, (well, maybe his abs) but the charming man slut character sums him up perfectly and is actually likable to me. I like Jennifer Garner also and of course romantic comedies, so like you, I will watch cheese and sleaze, haha!
Oh I forgot to add… I was disappointed to hear that Michael Douglas was in it since I don't care for him at all. Interesting to read these other opinions.
My husband HATES Matthew McConaughey so I doubt we'll be seeing this one. However, we did watch New in Town and thought that was cute.:-D It wasn't the best movie we've ever seen, but it was sweet and clean and there were some REALLY funny moments in it (like when his daughter went on her first date…hilarious! :-D)…thanks for recommending it!
Mary, I so want to see that movie — I never really like Mr. McConaughey, but I actually liked him in Fool's Gold — and kinda changed my mind. And of course, he's super dreamy, so that's a total bonus. And who doesn't love Jennifer Garner? She's just delightful — I just watched Juno last night and I couldn't help but think she was just so perfectly beautiful!
But realistically, I'll probably not see it until it comes out on DVD — that's the way it goes.
And your hubby is a real gem!
I just ran across this and I have to add my thoughts… this was a guilty pleasure movie for me for sure. I’m not even entirely sure why I loved it so much but despite the raunchiness {oh seriously gag me, people let’s leave that crap out, meh} I really enjoyed it. I couldn’t stand Michael Douglas’s character but he played it well. Some of the movie is annoying, but I love it anyway. The relationship between Matthew & Jennifer’s characters is just too sweet and lovable. I adore how they were childhood buddies. I love the actors that play Matthew’s brother & his fiancee, so they made it way more fun {God bless you Breckin Meyer, you save every movie you’re in}…. And the saving scene for me is when Matthew is chasing the car full of girls, nearly kills himself, and stops them in time to give the most romantic, lovable speech to his brother’s fiancee. I stopped and rewound it enough to write that speech down. It came at a time when things in my marriage were really rocky, and I needed to remember how much I loved my hubby and that walking away from something like that would be far dumber than I was even realizing at the time.
Love.
I’m not going to lie: I really did like this movie. I get that it’s awful. But I liked it anyway! And yes, sometimes dumb movies speak to us just as loudly as serious, Oscar-worthy ones.