My Super Ex-Girlfriend Movie Review

To use relationship parlance, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is good for a one night stand. It won’t be meeting the other DVDs in your family. When you see it on the cable stations, just nod and move on so no one gets hurt.

Alone and deprived of sex, New Yorker Matt (Luke Wilson) begins dating nebbish Jenny (Uma Thurman) hoping to get some frenzied lovemaking and little else. He gets more than that. Not only does he get a girlfriend, she’s the city’s savior. When not riding the subway and working at an art gallery, Jenny is G-Girl, the 21st century answer to Supergirl.

For Matt, what starts as a major turn-on (it turns out super heroines are really, really good in bed) soon fades. Jenny is possessive, manipulative, and moody, qualities that become potentially fatal given her supernatural abilities. Matt breaks up with Jenny, an act that turns her into Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction as conceived by Stan Lee. This is not good news for Matt, who is in love with his co-worker (Anna Faris), and would like to pursue those feelings without being crushed into a fine powder.

The good news about My Super Ex-Girlfriend is that the leads deliver the goods. Though miscast as a playa, Wilson delivers his usual earnest, deadpan performance, a definite plus for a concept that is so over-the-top. And it’s neat to see Thurman play someone who gets spurned; she throws herself into the role with the appropriate zeal. They’re fine, more than fine.

The supporting cast is a different story. Faris, a first-rate comedic talent (Lost in Translation, Just Friends), gets a thankless role, which is made worse thanks to screenwriter Don Payne. First, she’s an object of lust for Wilson’s sad sack, then suddenly she’s the love of his life. No convincing reason is given as to why Wilson’s character has a change of heart. Wanda Sykes, as Wilson and Faris’s boss, stops the movie cold at least twice with lame sexual harassment jokes. The movie’s villain is played by Eddie Izzard, a good choice, except here he’s unusually tame here. What fun is that?

My Super Ex-Girlfriend would have been better if Payne and director Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Dave) looked at dating rituals with a superhuman twist. Can you imagine Matt meeting her parents, or the two of them moving in together? And what does G-Girl’s list of ex-boyfriends look like? That has to be better than uptight bosses, horn-dog friends (a role Rainn Wilson plays very well here), or nondescript love interests. Good for a few chuckles, My Super Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t capitalize on a creative premise to make an impact. In this case, it’s not you; it’s the movie.

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