I feel so used. I walked out of a sneak preview last night and realized that Must Love Dogs is just one big, badly done advertisement for a new dating site called “perfectmatch.com” There were innumerable references to the site and I was handed a coupon for one free month on the site when I exited. The whole thing wouldn’t feel so slimy if the movie had at least been original or entertaining. I’m not even sure I would recommend watching this when it gets to video, cause it really was that bad.

I just wanted some air conditioning and a nice amusing rom/com. I was fully aware that the concept of dog owners as hapless daters has already been done plenty of times before, but who doesn’t like the idea of seeing Diane Lane flirting away with John Cusack? Unfortunately, even that kind of engaging star power couldn’t stand up against a horrendous script, terrible acting on the part of every supporting actor and a director who, frankly, has no sense of pacing.

The first half hour is completely flat and slow. The set up is totally unrealistic and just takes too damn long. We get it, she is divorced … he is divorced, both have friends and family who want them to be dating again just so they’ll be happy. We kind of knew all that when we walked into the theater. The boredom is only punctuated by moments of horrible acting. Ali Hillis had a small supporting role as the funky younger sister, but I’ve seen better acting at a middle school play. Christopher Plummer, plays Diane Lane’s father and it seemed like he was already dead and stuffed. Ben Shenkman was similarly horrible as the annoying best friend of John Cusak’s character. The whole thing was painful to watch.

Then the ridiculous amount of shots that show the online dating web site are annoying, useless and forced. Not to mention that the camera spends plenty of time lingering over shots of Pepsi cans placed not so subtly in the foreground. Again, let me reiterate I would be more amenable to being advertised to if they had spent more than 2 minutes throwing together this crap film to use as a vehicle for the many promotions.

Save yourself the money, save yourself the time. And please don’t use the stupid dating web site or else this kind of Hollywood buy-off will be a financial success that they will want to re-create.

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