"Just Married"

Just Married

20th Century Fox

In the grand tradition of early January releases, the Ashton Kutcher-Brittany Murphy vehicle Just Married is a huge waste of time. Other wothless films that have recently shared the honor of opening during the post-holiday drought season include Save the Last Dance and the Ryan Phillippe snore-fest Anti Trust. Like those films, Just Married is a predictable, derivative marketing tool with beautiful people and beautiful morals.

The blond bomber Murphy and the Abercrombie-chic Kutcher provide the eye candy in this case. They play a young married couple (Sarah and Tom) who endure a league of post-nuptial traumas on their honeymoon in Europe. These range from mishaps during their induction into the mile-high club to the curious appearance of Sarah’s snobbish ex-lover Peter. Giving up the ending, however, would be a travesty, especially if audiences found the conclusion of Pretty Woman to be hugely surprising.

Just Married, like most films of its genre, begins by touching on cliched yet interesting social issues, only to resolve them as quickly and sloppily as Trent Lott fleeing a Jay-Z concert. Writer Sam Harper, who also penned the similarly-lame kiddie flick Rookie of the Year, embroils his characters in a classist struggle that pits Sarah’s crusty upbringing against Tom’s small-time bachelor-pad existence. Love, however, conquers all, as it usually does in the hearts of Beverly Hills society girls raised to believe that “marriage is an investment.”

Unsurprisingly, Just Married isn’t smart enough to give the audience any reason to purchase stock. Tom is clearly a complete moron, and Sarah’s twinkly-eyed ignorance of her family’s monetary stuffiness doesn’t help the couple’s obvious destiny seem any more realistic.

Once upon a time a film like Just Married could be passed off as a diverting comedy, and nothing more. However, Murphy, Kutcher, and the film’s ho-hum script aren’t charming enough to make Just Married even slightly more diverting than staring at a freshly painted dormitory wall.

—Clint J. Froehlich

Just Married screens at 12, 2:20, 4:55, 7:10 and 10 p.m. at Loews Cineplex Fresh Pond, 168 Alewife Brook Pkwy, and at 12:50, 3:40, 6:20, 9:25 and 11:45 p.m. at Loews Cineplex Boston Common, 175 Tremont St.