When In Rome

Stupidly, I walked into "When In Rome" assuming it was going to be a comedy. I mean with people like Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, Danny Devito, Jon Heder, and Will Arnett would you expect anything less?

Well, you shouldn't if you said yes, you silly person. The answer is no. I expected a comedy and got a subpar chick flick, which if we look at the international ratings for entertainment quality, rates slightly above indie horror flicks about mutated animals/people/piranhas, and slightly below chopping oneself's foot off.

Kristen Bell plays Beth, the very young and attractive curator of the Guggenheim museum in New York - which, as you know, only hires young, attractive women to run the place. Beth feels like no one loves her because her boyfriend is getting married and she loves her work too much to find a guy. The obvious solution would be to not work as hard and find a husband, but being a chick flick, rationality is thrown out the window faster than a dead mouse.

After being all mopey about her ex-boyfriend getting married, Beth discovers that her sister is getting married in Rome. Beth flies to Rome and gets involved with the best man Nick (Josh Duhamel, "Transformers") But when she sees Nick kissing another girl she climbs into the fountain of love and takes people's coins from the fountain. I guess this is some Roman legend, I'm not entirely sure, but every guy who threw a coin in the fountain that Beth picks up, falls instantly and magically in love with her.

Plot is not this movies strong point, but at least it starts getting funny around now. Several guys fall in love with her, a struggling magician (Heder), an Italian painter (Arnett), a model (Shepard) and a sausage company owner (Devito). Beth knows these characters don't actually love her, but she's not sure if she picked up one of Nick's coins who seems to have fallen in love with her as well.

Unfortunately, their scenes are incredibly underutilized, although amusing. If "When In Rome" has anything going for it, it has a great supporting cast who do their best to make this movie enjoyable. Shout out to Bobby Moynihan, an SNL regular who is great as Nick's best friend.

"When In Rome" fails on a lot of different levels, and if you do see it, do your best to enjoy the great scenes with the supporting cast.

One and a half out of four stars

-Christopher O'Connell