Two Stars, No Chemistry

  
Directed by Tom Hanks
Rated PG-13,  Runtime: 99 mins.
Stars: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Sarah Mahoney

En español  |  Was it too much to have high hopes for Larry Crowne, the latest film from two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks, who not only stars, but writes (with Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding), directs (his second big-screen effort after 1996’s That Thing You Do!) and produces? Was it too much to think that he and fellow mega-watt luminary Julia Roberts — his costar in 2007’s Charlie Wilson’s War — could make magic again?  Yeah, you’ll smile from time to time during Larry Crowne — you might even laugh, thanks to the exaggerated vocal antics of Star Trek veteran George Takei — but is that all there is?

See also: Larry Crowne star Pam Grier, still kicking butt.

Here’s the story:  A middle-aged divorced suburbanite, Crowne (Hanks) is happily toiling away in middle management at a Walmart–type chain when he gets downsized — sacked, really — because, having some years earlier chosen a stint in the Navy over college, he lacks the higher education the organization believes its leaders should possess.  He’s a lonely, dorky sort (to be honest, I personally think Hanks has exhausted his inner Forrest Gump by now) who’s upside down on his mortgage, regrets never having kids and seems to have few friends except his neighbors across the street (Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson, working too hard for laughs), who support themselves by holding a perpetual garage sale in their front yard. What’s a guy to do?  Reinvent himself, of course, by going back to school.

The problem here is that, while the plotline is rooted in real life and promises happiness from heartbreak, it’s clear that Hanks has been too long ensconced in the unreal world of Hollywood to make any of what happens next ring true. To whit: Crowne befriends a beautiful and much younger fellow student named Talia ( Gugu Mbatha-Raw) when he parks the scooter he’s purchased to save on gas next to her at the community college.

Next: Crowne's classmates find him fascinating. >>