REVIEW: 'What's Your Number?'

Romantic comedy about a woman who treks back through her sexual past to try and find Mr Right. Stars Anna Faris (The House Bunny) and Chris Evans (Captain America). Now playing nationwide, click for movie times and trailer.

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I’m a big fan of Anna Faris. From the Scary Movies to Yogi Bear and The House Bunny she’s enlivened even the most moribund of comedies. She’s Katherine Heigl with a personality, Kate Hudson with better comic timing, a taller, less southern Reese Witherspoon and Matthew McConaughey in a dress. But even Faris, saddled with a script that makes her character both ditzy and cynical, can’t save this lame duck Bridesmaids meets Ghosts of Girlfriends Past hybrid.

A mix of Sleepless in Seattle-esque statistics-based comedy with the magazine-inspired antics of How to Lose a Man in Ten Days, Number is overlong and unoriginal. All the modern 'raunchy' rom com boxes are ticked – kids swearing, google searching, weird handcrafts, uncool music appreciation (here it’s Lionel Ritchie) and oldies excelling at social media, while the obligatory flashbacks come in the form of trawls through Ally’s bed-friend back-catalogue. The soundtrack is cloying, the leading men are a comic-book action star and a clip show host rather than, you know, funny people, and the horribly choppy editing strains continuity and the audience’s interest to breaking point. A prime example of romantic-comedy by the numbers.

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