The print ads for Just Married trumpet the film as "The first BIG comedy of the new year!" and for once the studio isn't lying.  Married is, officially, the first picture to be released in 2003, and the ad merely points this out, albeit in giant block letters that scream for attention. This should give you a pretty good idea of what the studio thinks of Hollywood's New Year's baby.  They didn't stretch the truth and crow, "The funniest film of the new year!" or "The year's best picture!" but instead stuck with the facts.  The tagline may as well read, "Projected on a big white screen!" or "Full of many scenes, edited together!"

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the studio's ad isn't telling the truth after all.  I did manage to overlook one word – "comedy."  Married is about as funny as Schindler's List.  Every scene that had the potential to be the tiniest bit comical has already been rubbed into the dirt via the film's trailer and non-stop television commercials.  Not some of them – all of them.  Like a ringworm (which is neither a ring, nor a worm - it's a fungus) Married is a romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor comedic.  If, instead of a feature film, Married was a UPN sitcom, it would be canceled faster than you could say "Moesha.

Married follows the tired old Boy Meets, Loses, Then Wins Back Girl flowchart, deviating only slightly by showing the tail end of the losing in its opening scene.  We see Tom Leezak (Ashton Kutcher, That '70s Show) and Sarah McNerney (Brittany Murphy, 8 Mile) going at it like they were in a post-pubescent version of The War of the Roses as they return to the US from what we can only imagine was a horrifyingly unromantic European honeymoon. The two part ways, and seem quite happy about the split.

Via flashback, we learn the origin of Tom and Sarah's relationship.  They're a mismatched pair - she's a Wellesley grad with a degree in art history and a job at Sotheby's; he's a community college-educated C-list radio traffic reporter – but none of that matters because love conquers all, right?  The couple moved in together after one month and got engaged in less than a year, despite numerous misgivings from Sarah's blueblood family.

After an abbreviated wedding scene, the two kids take off on what could almost be called Kelso's European Vacation, in that, thanks to bad luck, timing and manners, just about everything goes wrong.  Heck, you've seen the trailer - you know what happens.  All the bad things that Tom and Sarah encounter are right there, and all of the mindless stuff that comes in between these dreary events helps to create a colossal, time-wasting flop that is offensive to every fiber of my very being.  Most of it is weakly re-hashed bits from other, funnier films, specifically the first two Vacation flicks and There's Something About Mary (right down to the dog flying out the window).

Married is filmmaking at its absolute worst.  It's lazy, sloppy and nauseating - kind of like banging a 400-pound transvestite (or at least what I would imagine that would be like – not that I think about it).  The film's two leads are borderline retards whose real-life relationship smacks of something artificial created by publicists eager to shift the spotlight from the crappy film to its crappy stars.  It's difficult to think that a worse film will be released in 2003, though Kangaroo Jack is due to hit theatres next week.  I have a feeling Married is going to make the upcoming A Guy Thing look like Casablanca.

1:33 -

for sexual content, some crude humor and a brief drug reference