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a better lead duo, because I didn't buy Latifah and Common in their roles at all
I didn't buy Latifah in this role because she's simply too charismatic. It looked and felt like she was trying mighty hard to contain the charisma and play the down-on-her-luck, never chosen chick.
And not to say that J-Hud does frumpy better. It's just that we KNOW Latifah. We've seen her through the years, from the All Hail the Queen days to Fresh Prince to Living Single to Chicago and so on. This felt like she was slumming, or stepping in at the last minute because another lead actress dropped out (and yes, I know, this was a Flavor Unit production). Perhaps a younger actress, like J-Hud, or Gabby (cmon) would have better served the fairy tale vibe that the story seemed to be going for...
I also didn't buy Com as a superstar NBA point guard. He's too short (even at that position), and his head seemed too big for his body. And the b-ball sequences in general were laughably unbelievable. He's got nice guy charm, and I would have believed him as a bench player, or as the agent, or even as the coach, but not as The Man on his squad.
So when you have two leads whom you don't buy in their roles, it makes it that much harder to buy their romantic chemistry. On a related note, it shole would have been nice to get a Latifah-Com RAP collabo (not the thing they played at the end credits, with Com rapping and Latifah scatting... shout-out to Latifah and Shakim for putting more than a few Van Hunt songs in the movie, however).
Back to the movie, I actually thought Dwight Howard would have made for a more interesting lead. The scene in which he visits an injured Com (I guess we're to assume that he's still in town because of the All-Star Game) showed that he has some charisma and a nice smile to build upon, should he so desire.
I thought Paula Patton was decent, but her character came off as inconsistent and only did things because the plot required her to do them, especially near the end.
The characters as a whole were bland and the movie felt rushed. The script came off like a standard romantic comedy but it needed to go further. I thought we needed to see Latifah on more dates. We needed Latifah doing her thing at work. I needed to get a better sense of why dudes were picking her over besides she's big and... well, there really wasn't another reason given (and even that wasn't explicitly stated by Laz in the first scene)... I mean, would it have killed Michael Eliot to give her a flaw or two? Maybe she's overly excited by sports. Maybe her thorough knowledge of the Nets intimidates guys. And yeah, you have to address her size, but even still, there should have been something else to make her seem realer.
I'm not a big romantic comedy dude so I wanted to give the movie more slack and hope that it would defy some of the conventions that makes me avoid these movies in the first place. But that didn't happen. Too bad.
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