Ivan Reitman: The Harder They Fall

Anyone used to the Ivan Reitman with a sweetly slapstick soul will wonder where he's gone to with the middling new film No Strings Attached. A forced, by the numbers script is shaped into a mediocre waste of celluloid. Natalie Portman, still beaming from her triumphant cinematic pirouette, floats through unsundered, as we wonder what she's doing in this January joke with the boring Ashton Kutcher. Some of the supporting cast (Greta Gerwig, Chris Bridges) bring much needed spunk which still cannot wash away the bitter taste of the typical. Reitman's last two films were both criminally underrated, the surreal comedies Evolution and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. No Strings will hopefully provide him quick cash to return to form.