All About Steve

I know someone somewhere thought it was cute play on words (and famous movie titles) to call this one, All About Steve, but it's a movie that is really something about Mary, and you might not want to know this about Mary.

Sandra Bullock stars as Mary - a cruciverbalist (crossword puzzle creator) for the local Sacramento newspaper. She's not exactly miss popularity (or congeniality), somewhat introverted, doesn't dress trendy and feels more comfortable with her puzzles than human beings. While living at home, her parents decide to set Mary up on a blind date. Lucky for her, the man in question is hottie network news cameraman, Steve (Bradley Cooper from The Hangover, that's what he is called in all of the commercials).

She likes him.

He's afraid of her.

Then, after that one, abbreviated date, Mary starts to follow Steve (Bradley Cooper from The Hangover) from town to town trying to win his heart (If you look like me, that's called stalking. If you look like Sandra Bullock, it is called comedic courtship or your lucky day).

Will Mary win over Steve (Bradley Cooper from The Hangover)?

Will he get a restraining order to send her back to Sacramento?

Mary is the biggest problem with All About Steve. Writer Kim Barker and Bullock want us to believe she is a lovable, cute, misunderstood, socially inept, but kindhearted eccentric who happens to look like Sandra Bullock on a bad hair day. Unfortunately, Mary comes off more like a person who is mentally ill (and looks like Sandra Bullock on a bad hair day), which makes All About Steve kind of creepy as various characters try to take advantage of her and use her to do their bidding.

That's a huge hurdle for director Phil Traill and the team to overcome, and they can't. At the very least, they save us from the predictable montage where Mary gets a makeover, reappears a la Olivia Newton-John in Grease and makes us realize Mary does look like Sandra Bullock, and, now, she is va va va voom (with hot leather pants on and no bad hair day). Sadly, Barker and Traill go for something more disappointing and annoying.

Just when you have given up all hope, had a few giggles along the way, and want to get out of the theater before anybody sees you, Barker and Traill insert a third act that completely changes the tone of All About Steve. While there was a slight bit of hope for the movie when it was a silly, madcap comedy that never achieves the correct level of silly nor madcap, it is a complete failure when Barker and Traill try to make us cry. Yes, All About Steve suddenly becomes a drama with events that make all of the characters reconsider their opinions of Mary. I was praying for the ghost of Paul Newman to save me.

Thomas Haden Church scores some laughs with his portrayal of an egotistical network news correspondent, while Cooper (from The Hangover) mainly is required to be good looking, and not much else. As far as Bullock, what can I say? Sure, better writing would help. Sure, a different actress who didn't look like Sandra Bullock would make it more believable, but Bullock is the least of our troubles in All About Steve.

All About Steve is rated PG-13 for sexual content including innuendos.