Selling 'Steve': How To Make Cinematic Candy Smell Like 100 Dirty Gym Shoes

All About Steve is being marketed in such a way that even if you might be inclined to like it, you may get the sinking feeling that you won't. (Twentieth Century Fox)

by Linda Holmes

I want to stress that I have not seen All About Steve, do not know whether All About Steve is worthwhile, and generally am in no position to pass judgment on whether All About Steve is going to ultimately be worth seeing or not. I am always happy to be surprised -- I was oddly charmed by Sandra Bullock's other summer offering, The Proposal.

But I will tell you this: Rarely has a movie managed to take so many elements of which I am generally in favor and combine them in such a way that my initial reaction is that I would rather be shot out of a cannon than see this movie. In fact, if you told me I had to be shot out of a cannon, my only request would be that you aim me away from this movie.

Stalker hilarity, love among the grotesques, and what's going on with Bradley Cooper, after the jump...

Let's review the trailer and its myriad difficulties.

Sandra Bullock's character, Mary, appears to be maladjusted and possibly Not Right. Quirks are quirks. They can be endearing. But seeming like you are actually unbalanced enough to follow a guy you just met across the country because he says, "Wish you could be there"? That's not a quirk; that is a cry for help. And not the "She just needs someone to tell her she's wonderful the way she is" kind of help, either. More like the "Where are the butterfly net and the tranquilizer dart?" kind of help.

Apparently, the hoped-for moratorium on stalking as a gateway to romance has not yet taken hold. Stalking isn't cute. Stalking isn't cute. Stalking isn't cute. Shall we repeat it a few more times until it sinks in that even in a comedy, this kind of pursuit is too uncomfortable to be fun? It is harder to get excited about this, as a romantic comedy structure, than about almost anything else.

Bradley Cooper looks miserable. Cooper, who was wonderful in The Hangover just this summer, has a mischievous brand of slickness that works pretty well for him — he's almost like Hugh Grant, in that all the humor of his personality comes out when he's being a little bit of a jerk. Here, he just looks trod-upon by this bewigged Cheez Doodle of a former blind date, and he seems flat and dull as a result.

That title. 'Nuff said, I think.

He's Just Not That Into Her. "I'm a guy! We say things we don't mean!" Yes, yes. Girls like honesty and feelings; boys like hookups and conflict avoidance! Girls are too trusting; boys are too dishonest! He's from Mars; she's from Venus! (Though in this case, she's apparently from farther away than that.) When this entire brand of rom-com humor came around, somewhere in the vicinity of Sex And The City, there might have been a few things about it that had not been said and a few jokes that had not been made. No more.

This movie ought to be candy — and maybe it will be. And maybe other people will like it. (Heaven knows The Ugly Truth had nothing to recommend it, and it still made money.) But it's remarkable that they've managed to take something appetizing — the concept of Bradley Cooper and Sandra Bullock (both fresh off of successful comedies) being in a comedy together — and make it look like something with so little appeal even to those of us so firmly within the target audience that we might as well have bullseyes painted on our foreheads.