Worth the price of admission, or a waste of time? Brian McKechnie and Suzanne Ellis offer you their take on the latest movies hitting screens. Read their reviews every week, exclusively on CityNews.ca.

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GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST

Rated PG-13
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas
Directed by: Mark Waters
Official Site IMDb

Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a player. He's never with a woman for more than a night and doesn't believe in love. The night before his younger brother's wedding he's visited by the ghosts of his past girlfriends and is shown how many people he has hurt over the years.

Brian's Take

* out of 5 stars

There is nothing likable about the Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It's horribly written, directed, edited, scored and has the worst ensemble cast since 2007's P.S. I Love You. The only thing that could have made it worse is if Kate Hudson was in it.

Let's start with the biggest problem the film has - the portrayal of women as brainless "oh my god I need a man to survive" dimwits. Early on McConaughey's Connor Mead tells a woman he's about to have a fling with that it's easy for him to get women because most have a father complex. She replies she doesn't fall into that category because she never knew her father. Point proven. The lack of respect for women gets worse with the highlight being the three bridesmaids freaking out they're not going to get "wedding sex". What world do the two men who wrote the script live in? It's not funny, it's sad. If the film diminishes the target audience (women) to ants who is going to enjoy this film?

The entire cast should be ashamed of themselves for having anything to do with this train wreck. Matthew McConaughey's obsession with romantic comedies has once and for all jumped the shark. He looks like an absolute fool on-screen. His ability to not look good with any actress attached to his lips is mind-blowing. When he's playing a role like Rick Peck in Tropic Thunder he's great. Unfortunately he takes the Connor Mead roles more often than the Rick Peck roles and there is nothing redeeming about him. Jennifer Garner was great in 13 Going on 30 (a film I had no expectations for) and I liked her in Catch and Release. Here she comes across as just another annoying tart and I wonder if it was actually written for Kate Hudson. Michael Douglas (who plays Connor Mead's dead uncle) is not even worth mentioning. I'm embarrassed for him.

No movie is more deserving of zero stars than the Ghost of Girlfriends Past. The one star I did give it is for Breckin Meyer. He's very genuine as Connor's younger brother Paul and at one point gives a great speech about the importance of brothers sticking together. Unfortunately that's not enough to save this disgrace of a film. I hope I never have to see it again as long as I live.

Suzanne's Take

* out of 5 stars

What would Charles Dickens have to say about his classic A Christmas Carol being morphed into the monstrosity that is Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past? They'd be choice words, I guarantee it.

Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner star in this insulting excuse for a romantic comedy about a callous player who's visited by three spirits, the ghosts of girlfriends past, present, and future, who force him to revisit his romantic relationships in an attempt to make him see the error of his ways.

McConaughey is the cad in question - Connor Mead, who has a way with the ladies and has no qualms about breaking hearts. An early scene sees him dump three women simultaneously via conference call - the best part of this charming sequence is that another woman watches him do this and then sleeps with him anyway. I can't remember the last time female characters were painted so poorly as in this film. That extends to the Bridezilla-esque character Sandra, who's about to marry Connor's brother Paul (Breckin Meyer).

Connor shows up for Paul's wedding weekend in the country and the first thing he does is tell his sibling that there's still time to escape the impending nuptials if he wants to. From there it's one faux pas to another as Connor's views on marriage threaten to derail the entire celebration. That's when the ghost of Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas) shows up. Wayne adopted Connor and Paul when their parents passed away and it's obvious his Hugh Hefner-esque ways had a big impact on Connor.

In fact Wayne trains Connor so well to treat women as disposable that he's well on his way to losing the one chance he has at love, his best friend from childhood Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner). Connor obviously loves Jenny but his well-honed persona prevents him from opening up to her. And Jenny's affections are equally clear, but she has no patience for Connor's games.

Well, it doesn't take a genius to see where this story's headed. Along the way we're treated to a number of uninspired sight gags , some truly awful dialogue, and cringe-worthy references to the Dickens novel (I spotted a bookstore named Fezziwig's at one point).

Though I'm not a fan of Matthew McConaughey's he's entertaining in the right role - in Tropic Thunder he was perfectly cast as an overzealous Hollywood agent, and I didn't mind him in some of his early parts, for example Dazed and Confused, Contact, and U-571. But these romantic comedies he keeps popping up in, where it seems he's invariably playing a man suffering arrested development, offer little in the way of originality, or even laughs. And maybe someone finds him attractive in that role but I certainly don't.

As for Jennifer Garner, she's done much better work. There were shades of 13 Going On 30 in this film and that was a film I actually enjoyed her in. In Ghosts I found her character dull as dishwater.

I think the most offensive single thing about this movie though is its sheer concept, and the way they debased one of the most incredible and poignant stories of redemption ever told.  It doesn't serve to be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens.

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Stills from Ghosts of Girlfriends Past courtesy Alliance Films.