For all the talk about how no one in Hollywood has an original idea anymore, and how there are basically a half-dozen movies that just get re-worked, re-tooled, and spit back out… well, after seeing She’s Out of My League, you may just say, “Fine by me.”
It’s the classic beauty-and-the-beast tale mixed with a good helping of Apatow-isms.
And it’s a lot of fun.
Jay Baruchel plays loveable loser Kirk, who spend his days with his three buddies in a thankless job as a TSA agent at the Pittsburgh Airport. At the same time, he’s also harboring a two-year-long crush for his ex-girlfriend. Yes, that is a huge ‘L’ you see on his forehead.
Enter Molly, who is, yes, out of his league. But Kirk is not just any old loser, he’s a loser with a heart of gold, so you know exactly where this thing is going. When he rescues Molly from a overly-attentive fellow TSAer, and then also rescues her iPhone, well… it’s obviously a match made in movie heaven.
There’s not an ounce of originality in the plot (fans will be reminded of the 80s classic Say Anything… more than a handful of times), so it falls on the characters and the screenplay to make She’s Out of My League watchable.
Baruchel is great as Kirk, semi-channeling Christian Slater with his voice and mannerisms and easily believable as the kind of nice guy that Molly would fall for. Alice Eve’s job as Molly is to just sit there and look hot (which she does really well), but she actually injects quite a bit of life into the part, too. The movie, though, is just one big playground for T.J. Miller who has a great time as Kirk’s friend Stainer. He steals the movie right out from under everyone.
The script (by Sean Anders and John Morris, which bodes well for their upcoming Hot Tub Time Machine) will keep you laughing from start to finish, with two scenes worthy of special mention. I’ll just say ‘family dinner’ and ‘shaving’. And that doesn’t even count a couple other scenes that everyone will be talking about as they walk out of the theater.
At its core, She’s Out of My League doesn’t get many points for originality, but if Say Anything… is a hard 10, then this movie is easily a really good 7. Maybe a 7½.
3.5/5 stars