Still hope for February

Fool’s Gold is one of the most preposterous movies that will be released this year. The fact that it stars two respectable stars, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, only hurts it at this point.

This is the second romantic comedy to star the two sex symbols — the first was How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days — and still they have no chemistry. Strangers on the street meeting for the first time have more of a love connection. They begin the movie married and the first frame they share together is at their divorce hearing. Turns out they wed because the sex was great; the judge hears this and rolls his eyes, as do we. By the end of Fool’s Gold they’re getting back together for even worse reasons.

He is Finn, a treasure detective who chases clues to sunken ships and buried treasures. So far he’s found nothing … ever. As best we can discern, he’s never even located his car keys or that remote control that’s squished between the cushions. She is Tess, who serves fancy meals on high-end yachts while her idiot husband (her words, not mine) stomps around the Caribbean digging empty pits. Every now and again Tess winks and grins and suggests her bird-brained husband is worth it because he’s dynamite in the bedroom. This is meant as a joke, but it cheapens the character and Hudson’s overall cutesiness.

Amid the divorce, Finn manages to sink his treasure-hunting boat and fall into debt with the boat’s owner, a rapper/crime lord named Bigg Bunny, one of many underdeveloped villains. The way the boat goes under is the film’s only scene worth writing about in a positive tone: Finn and his partner are underwater on a reef vacuuming sand when a fire on the boat above them ignites the entire hull. The ship descends Titanic-style while their backs are turned.

As the boat crashes into the reef it spits out a broken shard of plate, a major clue to a Spanish treasure called the Queen’s Dowry. The plate lights a fire under Finn who eventually joins up with his ex-wife to seek out the 300-year-old chests of gold and emeralds. Why she agrees to come along, especially considering that she wanted the divorce, is puzzling. But alas, the characters are written so poorly that the only motivation they’re given, if any at all, is sex and money.

Much of Fool’s Gold is clue extrication: Finn finds a piece of the puzzle and then he races across an island to find a new one. He goes from the reef to a lagoon to a Spanish church to a blowhole in the rocks. Some of his treasure hunt is spent under the ocean holding his breath for long periods of time. (Here’s a game: hold your breath when Finn does and see how realistic the underwater scenes are.) Always in tow is Tess, who spends much of the movie posing blatantly in bikinis so teeny-weeny they barely cover Hudson, a very teeny-weeny girl.

Fool’s Gold is directed by Andy Tennant, who gave us Hitch, which I enjoyed for its lighthearted charm, and Anna and the King, one of the better photographed movies of the last 10 years. Here he seems completely incoherent, and he stumbles under the weight of the film’s overall badness. One problem, is that there are just too many characters, many I haven’t even mentioned yet: a rich tycoon (Donald Sutherland) with a rich-man accent who agrees to fund the treasure hunt; his spoiled daughter (Alexis Dziena, Broken Flowers), who is probably a Paris Hilton parody; a Ukranian assistant with an apparent speech impediment; and Finn’s teacher (the great Ray Winstone), who could be a bad guy but is written into nothing, a nobody who turns up to send the plot scurrying in a different direction.

All of this is going on amid dialogue and acting so bogus they should be harpooned and hung from the dock. Another candidate for that treatment is George Fenton, who wrote the score as if the film were a silent feature — music cues jokes, kisses, discoveries … everything that our peepers see is prompted by a symphony of unnecessary sound.

Fool’s Gold is a vapid and lifeless adventure movie. Instead of dropping $20 on it this weekend, just rent Romancing the Stone and be thankful you’re not fool enough to venture to this stinker.

And some words about the stars
Matty and Katie, what gives on the movie choices? You both had decent break-out roles — in fact, they are still considered classics — but now your entire careers pretty much blow.

Matt, let’s start with you. It all began with Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, where you played pot-head Wooderson, a guy who just couldn’t progress after high school. The character played a pivotal role in the plot and is still quoted today — “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” That was 1993. You went from that to a craptastic Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, John Grisham swill A Time to Kill, homoerotic cowboy flick The Newton Boys, a Truman Show-trumped EdTV, overacted dragon epic Reign of Fire, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, super-flop Sahara, bomb rom-com Failure to Launch and feel-good sports flick We Are Marshall. Amid all this you banged out Contact and Amistad a year apart, and later the rather-ridiculous but still enjoyable U-571 —these represent some of your best work. As for everything else … duds. All of them.

Now for Kate, your career hasn’t been nearly as long, but it began on an even higher note. You played beautiful groupie Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical music movie Almost Famous. To this day that movie — that role specifically, even — rests very high up on several of my great movie lists. You nabbed an Oscar nomination for the role, but you’d never know (or believe) that by examining the movies that came after Almost Famous. Consider the barely distributed Dr. T and the Women, miserable period piece The Four Feathers, the super ludicrous Alex & Emma, absurdist comedy Le Divorce, the big-sister-as-the-new-mom-movie Raising Helen, stinker supernatural thriller (with a killer ending) The Skeleton Key and then You, Me and Dupree, which was kinda funny, but never your part. And now Fool’s Gold, which is somewhat similar to mommy Goldie Hawn’s romantic comedy Overboard. You were on the right track for better projects, but now, because of your willingness to traipse around in skimpy outfits in dull comedies, your entire career as a serious actress seems pretty much derailed.

Matt and Kate, if either of you need a new agent, consider my services now offered.