Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Matthew McConaughey and his Amazing Shirtless Chest want audience members to know he is trying to mature as an actor, so he only takes his top off ONE TIME in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past!!!! Big mistake. Always stick with the moneymaker until it stops dispensing quarters.

McConaughey stars as Connor Mead – a stylin’ superstar photographer and world class ladies man (this guy makes Mystery and his Pick Up Artist schemes look about as effective as the Republican Party’s efforts to elect a Mayor in DC). Connor is a jerk who specializes in loving them and leaving them (usually after one night if he can), but the ladies can’t get enough, which you can get away with when you look like McConaughey. However, every negative feeling he has about relationships and true love is about to be challenged.

Connor is off to his brother’s wedding, and the maid of honor is the best woman he ever had in his life, Jenny (Jennifer Garner). Of course, he blew it because Connor has been following the teachings of wild swinger, confirmed bachelor and Hugh Hefner wannabe Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). Now, the deceased Uncle Wayne’s ghost has come to Connor to warn him that it is time to change his ways, or he will suffer a lonely fate. Faster than you can say Scrooge, Connor learns he will be visited by three ghosts to help him confront his past, present and future.

Can Connor win the woman he loves?

Can he love?

Will God bless us every one?

When I first read about this movie several years ago, it was a star vehicle for Ben Affleck, and I thought it was a great idea.

I was wrong.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is trying to be all things to all people, which leads to failure in movies (and romance). Director Mark Waters and the writing team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore start off the film as some sort of madcap screwball comedy where the audience is supposed to chalk up Connor’s disregard for women as boys-will-be-boys behavior, since he is all charming and cute. We aren’t supposed to take it seriously.

Then, we take the onramp to the dramedy highway as Connor starts to regret his past behavior and all sorts of drama breaks out around him. After such broad, silly comedy, relying on McConaughey to play the goofy dumb guy, the drama kind of feels out of place and doesn’t deliver the emotional punch Waters might be striving for (and feels about as subtle as me using the word “drama” three times in three consecutive sentences).

It is all overly calculated and manipulative. We in the audience don’t honestly feel for Connor or believe he is a reformed man. We just go along with it because that’s the story we expect, and hoping that we will get more than the bland and average will just be as disappointing as going to prom with me when you were hoping to have Chace Crawford by your side.

McConaughey, Garner and Douglas heroically try to squeeze every ounce of entertainment out of the flimsy premise, and Douglas does have some kooky moments as the outrageous champion of swinging singledom, but Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is one of those movies best seen on cable, during a rainy day, while you are in bed, with the flu, and you have lost the remote control.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is rated PG-13 for sexual content throughout, some language and a drug reference.