LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT (Rated PG-13 for some profanity, some sexual material):  It's the boy-hates-girl, girl-hates-boy plot which you know from all similar  romantic  comedy flicks will turn into a loving relationship.  No surprises here.

Katherine Heigl & Josh Duhamel portray prime opposites, talked into a blind date by friends (?) in an evening that lasts about 5-minutes and is settled in fuming hatred.  Though he's a smart tech director for televised baseball games he shows up for his date looking & acting like Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski - casual to a fault, an hour late, with no plans & a motorbike for transportation.  She's a fastidious proprietress of a bakery, creating fancy cakes for fancy occasions, now done up in Hollywood chic, all set for a fancy dinner & fun.  The contrast is all too obvious; even the least of the audience will get it.

And so it continues.  They inherit  the care of their friends' baby as its godparents after the friends die in a convenient accident, forcing the odd couple into a hateful relationship that turns - oh, big surprise - into a loving couple. 

There's little originality in Ian Deitchman/Kristin Rusk Robinson's script (which I understand took 10 years to get accepted by Warner Brothers and which explains the dated jet set kind of atmosphere of at least a decade ago) - right down to the usual baby vomit & pooping stuff that we're supposed to find screamingly hilarious.

If the entire ambiance looks & sounds like a TV sitcom, it's no coincidence, having been directed by a TV director, Greg Berlanti.  All we needed was a good laugh track since the audience sat in patient silence.  He did have the backing of cinematographer Andrew Dunn, whose scenes radiated with the kind of flair the script, the direction, and the so-so talents of the cast decidedly lacked.

A pity.  No chance to turn this so-so material into the comedy it hoped to be.  Promising, yes, but shallow, superficially adequate and after 115-minutes of anticipation,  nada.  (Grade:  C+)