Failure to Launch - Palm Beach Post movie review

'Failure to Launch' gets no spark from its stars

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

As we heard on the Oscars telecast, Hollywood sounds nervous about the inroads made by DVDs over theatrical ticket sales.

So why do studios keep making anemic comedies like Failure to Launch, an insufficient argument for leaving the comfort of your home to go out to the movies?

Paramount Pictures

'Failure to Launch'

C+

The verdict: Unremarkable romantic comedy on arrested development, stolen by Parker's sidekick, Zooey Deschanel.

Director: Tom Dey
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper
Run time: 97 minutes
Release date: March 10, 2006
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and language.
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This Sarah Jessica Parker-Matthew McConaughey flick is not terrible, just inconsequential, worth a video rental at best.

The movie hinges on an interesting sociological tidbit, that many thirtysomething guys live at home with their parents. And it looks like a pretty good deal with genial folks like Kathy Bates and ex-footballer Terry Bradshaw to do son Tripp's laundry and make his breakfast. Still, even they have their limits, so they hire "professional interventionist" Parker to pretend to fall in love with McConaughey and get him to empty the nest.

Though responsibly employed, Tripp is stuck in adult childhood, busy playing paintball war games, scaling rock walls and sailing the yachts he brokers for a living.

Because of her subterfuge, Parker comes off as pretty unlikable, but do not go to Failure to Launch expecting a radically surprising ending. Go instead for Parker's deadpan cynical roommate, Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous), whose every line assures her theft of this movie.