A dude-movie that's also for the girls

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a wedding movie - but there’s nothing regular about it.

There are no running scenes where the bride-to-be goes from shop to shop trying out wedding dresses with her best friend in tow – usually, the other guy who would eventually manage to steal her away from the less-deserving groom (Wedding Singer, Runaway Bride, Made of Honor).

No perfect bridesmaid with man-issues - always the bridesmaid, never the bride (27 dresses and the Best Man).

Actually, that last sentence is untrue. There is a perfect chief-bridesmaid with man-issues, or rather, issues with one man. In fact she is so perfect she is bossy, and looks like she’s stealing the day from the bride herself. Maybe because the movie is not about the bride. It is not about the bridesmaid either. Well, not totally.

It is about Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey), the brother of the groom. Mead is the antithesis of the guys in a typical Judd Apatow movie. He’s the one those guys know they can never be, hence the reason they hang out in loser-packs, smoking marijuana from long-necked bongs.

Connor Mead is a he-male, a lone wolf and the type of guy that draws admiration and loathing in same proportion from an Apatow-male: a ladies-man whose one mission is to woo, conquer and then cast aside.

For convenience sake, he is not above doing the latter to three women at the same time - via a conference call over the internet.

McConaughey does some justice to this character. After all, it is Matthew McConaughey of the beefcake bod and the sexy twang; the king of the romantic-comedy genre.

Despite doing well in such ‘serious’ movies as Amistad and A Time to Kill, it would seem that Hollywood would much prefer he remains a cinema-bait for the ladies. And he delivers as usual, albeit with a less than charming supporting cast.

The movie starts slow and slows down even further when Connor goes for his brother’s wedding rehearsal. From the minute he enters, it is obvious what he is there for: cause chaos. However, the chief bridesmaid, the one with the man-issues - Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner) - is at hand to match him step for step and to prevent him turning what should be a perfect weekend into a miserable one.

By the way, Jenny happens to be Connor’s childhood sweetheart.

Jennifer Garner’s stiff portrayal of Jenny Perotti is one of the movie’s failings. In fact she is so stiff that one would like to yell: ‘But you were so cool in 13 going on 30!’

The movie finally picks up with the appearance of the first ghost, Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas): Connor’s beloved, belated uncle (spoiler alert: not all the ‘ghosts’ are actually dead).

The Jacob Marley of the story - Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - is inspired by Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol- Uncle Wayne’s is the quintessential bachelor uncle. He is also Connor’s mentor and the one who, regretfully, set him on the path to being a lady killer.

Granted, Uncle Wayne is supposed to be a laid back character, but Douglas played him a bit too laid back, like the role was one huge joke. Either that or he really had no idea what a cool uncle should be. Al Pacino may have been better.

The show stealers were the Ghost of Girlfriends Past (Emma Stone) - the first girl Connor ever kissed - and the maniacal bride, Sandra Volkrom (Lacey Chabert), who goes into a fit when she finds out that the right salad had not been served at the wedding rehearsal dinner.

But the real star of the show remains the leading man. For a movie filled with clichés and cheesy lines, McConaughey gives a sincere and almost moving performance, and even manages to make some of his lines memorable.

His winning scene is when he makes the toast to his long suffering brother, Paul Mead (Breckin Meyer), at the wedding. As a whole though, this does nothing to save the movie, as there is the persistent feeling that director Mark Waters could have done better.

For a wedding movie, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a bit sober - no dancing bridesmaids singing fruity songs and no dewy eyed bride.

Okay, the last part is also not true. But this movie is not about that. It is about a man trying to get his childhood innocence - and sweetheart - back. It is kind of a dude-movie for chicks and worth a watch - at least for your girlfriend’s sake.