Rated PG-13 for sexual content including innuendos, 98 minutes
Terribly unfunny and just plain terrible, skip "All About Steve"
In a nutshell, love Sandra Bullock, hate her new movie, "All About Steve." The movie is a disaster: badly edited, written, directed and acted, with one unfunny misstep after another. Even the likable, camera-loving Bullock is cast in one of her worst parts ever, as a non-stop gabbing stalker who thinks she's in love with a handsome TV cameraman played by "The Hangover's" Bradley Cooper. This mess of a movie is a low point in Bullock's career (and so unfortunate, coming after her biggest hit to date, "The Proposal") and the reason that studios thrust post-summer dreck like this on movie audiences every Labor Day.
Unemployed, chatty crossword puzzle constructor Mary Horowitz (Bullock) is smart, pretty - and a natural disaster that unnerves news cameraman Steve (Cooper). Set up on a blind date with Steve, Mary believes the chemistry is undeniable and knows she's discovered her soulmate. She decides to do anything and go anywhere to be with him. Mary's escalating infatuation is encouraged by self-absorbed news reporter Hartman Hughes (Thomas Haden-
Church) who enjoys torturing his insolent cameraman at every opportunity.
As the news team crisscrosses the country covering breaking news stories, Steve becomes increasingly unhinged and annoyed as Mary trails them, yet when the overzealous Mary becomes embroiled in a big news story, Steve begins to see her differently. Despite the media storm surrounding her, Mary's upbeat manner not only brings everyone together but finds her own unique friends and discovers her true place in the world.
Even big movie stars like Sandra Bullock have an off day, and "All About Steve" proves that in this comedy that's been sitting on the shelf awhile and should've stayed there. The beautiful, charming Bullock is naturally attracted to the camera, and while Bullock's charm is undeniable, it's hard to find it in Mary, one of the most annoying characters to grace the screen in recent memory. The non-stop chatting and encyclopedia references are grating, not to mention the stalkerish qualities are downright creepy. "Steve" plays to the other actors worst qualities too: Cooper's blandness (you would hardly know he's around at times) and Haden-Church's screechingly monotone delivery of his lines. Even the normally hilarious Ken Jeong (from "The Hangover" and "Role Models") is relegated to screaming "Shut up!," something you'll do too if you see the movie.
"All About Steve" (a play on words from the classic film "All About Eve") is supposed to be sort of a road trip film, but with the scenery you'd think they never got out of the state of California. A tornado - in the middle of the desert - really? And cactus in the state of Oklahoma? Don't think so. Then Mary picks up two equally unfunny, offensive dingballs played by D.J Qualls and Katy Mixon and it gets worse, and you'll be looking for the theater door once it reaches it's ridiculous finale, after which Mary's stupid actions get her in trouble but somehow still ends up falling in love with Steve.
As one character says in the film "If you missed a bus, you weren't destined to get on it." Destiny or not, please miss this film, it's definitely not worth it. See "The Proposal" with Bullock or "The Hangover" with Cooper, far better and far funnier films than the waste of celluloid called "All About Steve."
