Fresh out of a bad relationship, Dylan (Justin Timberlake) leaves Los Angeles for New York, where he’s been recruited by corporate headhunter Jamie (Mila Kunis) to take over as art director for a major magazine. Dylan and the recently dumped Jamie become fast friends, and one night they decide to see if they can add no-commitment sex to their relationship. What happens next is, well, pretty much the same thing that always happens in this sort of situation. 

CRITIQUE

I have three words for anyone who thought Easy A signaled a significant upswing in director Will Gluck’s career: not so fast. It was hard to believe the same man who made that movie had made the awful Fired Up! only a year or so earlier, and Friends with Benefits makes it even harder to believe. This movie gets off to an okay enough start, but about forty minutes in it takes a turn for the worse, and it gets increasingly worse as it shambles toward its predictable, vomit-inducing finale.

I’ve not seen the similarly themed No Strings Attached, so I don’t know if that movie is Deep Impact and this one’s Armageddon, or vice versa. But I’d wager money this one is Armageddon, as I can’t imagine Strings possibly being worse than Friends (and I say that as someone who kind of likes Armageddon and doesn’t think Deep Impact is all that much better). Regardless, I’ve no interest in seeing Strings, as I’m pretty sure it’s just as predictable as this movie.

All of these stories end up at the exact same destination, and they tend to get there in much the same manner. It is a little surprising how Friends with Benefits gets to where it’s going, but only because the path it takes it so stupid you likely won’t see it coming, nor will you likely believe it when you see it. The last two acts of this movie are more or less one big non sequitur, in no way growing organically out of the setup. It’s as if every copy of the script mysteriously vanished about two weeks into shooting and Gluck (who also gets a writing credit, sharing the blame with three others) and his cast were forced to make up everything else. How else do you explain the repeated use of Kriss Kross’s biggest hit, the repeated use of Semisonic’s only hit, and all of those damned flash mobs?

Let’s get right to the point: What would you make of a sex comedy that forgets all about both the sex and the comedy and switches focus to the male protagonist’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted father? I don’t know what to make of it. I know I didn’t like it (still don’t), and what mild interest I had in the movie completely evaporated the moment it became clear all of the dirty stuff (speaking of which, this is the sort of movie in which sexually open and honest people always have under-the-covers sex; don’t go in hoping for a lot of exposed flesh, as you only get a couple shots of Timberlake’s ass and one shot of Kunis’s body double’s ass) had been benched and the lame, sickeningly schmaltzy, stupidly sensitive stuff--which isn’t handled realistically and is therefore impossible to take seriously (in case anyone’s wondering, Tyler Perry is not one of the other credited writers)--had taken the field.

I always welcome the presence of Richard Jenkins, who here plays Timberlake’s father, but his character and subplot (it’s actually to big to be a subplot, but I don’t think anyone’s coined a more accurate term) are so damned incongruously wrong that I couldn’t help but wish they’d been edited out. That’s how bad this movie gets: it made me wish I wasn’t watching Richard Jenkins. And to add insult to injury, all of this material exists only so Jenkins’s character can deliver a touching (read: spell-it-all-out) speech to Timberlake’s character, with predictable results. I don’t think he’s to be commended in any way, but Gluck has delivered cinema’s longest plot contrivance since all of that crap about the rapist in Malice. Way to go, Will.

The movie’s first third isn’t exactly stellar, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than what follows (and what follows includes both the obligatory crisis and obligatory pat resolution). Not a whole lot happens early on, but there’s enough zippy banter to compensate for the fact the plot is taking its sweet time to get going. Kunis gets to let fly with the dirty talk, and you can get a lot of mileage out of an attractive woman talking dirty.

Better still, an actress making what amounts to a surprise cameo appearance really gets to talk dirty, and it’s even cooler than I’d imagined it would be (which sounds really creepy on my part, but so be it). Kunis and Timberlake take some shots at John Mayer, which is something I myself have been known to do (I keep hoping John Belushi will rise from the grave, snatch the guitar out of Mayer’s hands and smash it against the nearest wall), so of course I ate that up. And Patricia Clarkson shows up as Kunis’s mother, and I always welcome her presence (even more than I do Jenkins’s presence).

In a bit of meta humor that fails miserably, Kunis and Timberlake watch and make derogatory comments about a crappy romantic comedy that always seems to be on a certain pay-cable channel (the amount of product placement in this flick is ridiculous). They point out numerous clichés in this movie-within-a-movie (which “stars” Jason Segel and Rashida Jones [I didn’t think I’d live long enough to pan a movie that features Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson, and Rashida Jones]), bemoaning their ubiquitous nature.

Wouldn’t you know it, Friends with Benefits eventually starts trotting out many of those clichés. I’m sorry, but you can’t go out of your way make a crack about the done-to-death rom-com cliché of using a pop song as an emotional shortcut and then turn around and use a (ugh) Death Cab for Cutie song (twice!) as an emotional shortcut. Well, I suppose you could, but it would require a deft touch (and perhaps a little knowing irony), and there’s nothing deft about this venal, overlong, addlebrained misfire.

THE VIDEO

The 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--looks very good, especially for this sort of flick. It’s obvious at least some thought went into the movie’s look, as the cinematography isn’t overly sunny or distressingly flat (although it’s still nothing special). The movie was shot digitally, but the only time this is evident is during nighttime scenes, which can suddenly go flat and/or feature blacks that waver. Scenes bathed in daylight and most interiors look quite good, with colors that are nicely delineated and a nice illusion of depth. Detail is pleasing, if not exactly spectacular.

THE AUDIO

The movie’s sound design follows the usual rom-com template, so this disc’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (in both English and French varieties) isn’t really expansive or immersive. For what it is, though, it’s quite good. There’s some mild atmosphere and music bleed in the rears, but it’s an expectedly front-heavy mix, driven by dialogue and augmented by (way too many) soundtrack selections. The dialogue sounds good, and so does the music, which is supported by some nice bass action. A Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 track is also included, as is an English Audio Description track; English, English SDH, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), French, Korean, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by Will Gluck, Justin Timberlake, and Mila Kunis is anemic when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the production, but that’s to be expected. The whole point is to get these three in a room together and let them talk about whatever they want, which they do.

Ten deleted scenes (9 minutes, HD) waver in quality, much like the movie itself. Some of them are amusing, some of them are awful.

Outtakes (7 minutes, HD) offer flubs, blown lines, unused improvs, and other on-set shenanigans.

The following three features are exclusive to this Blu-ray release:

On Set with FWB (5 minutes, HD) is an EPK-style mix of promotional and behind-the-scenes clips.

In a Flash: Choreographing a Mob (6 minutes, HD) takes a look at the planning and filming of the movie’s (too numerous) flash mob sequences.

What’s labeled a Bonus Benefits Pop-Up Trivia Track offers a running stream of factoids and bits of trivia (some of it actually related to the movie, much of it not).

An access code for an UltraViolet digital copy is also included.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Were the entire movie as relatively entertaining as its first act, Friends with Benefits could’ve been an okay way to kill a couple hours. But it didn’t work out that way, and that okay opening can’t compensate for the unmitigated awfulness of what follows.