My Mom's New Boyfriend

Think of the biggest romantic comedies of the last 15 years and the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks dream team won't be far from the top of the list, thanks to Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. And now, in a typical Hollywood twist of fate, Ryan has emerged from a four-year fallow period to star opposite Colin Hanks, Tom's son. Such a familiar pairing - squint and Colin could almost be his dad circa Big - should guarantee at least a few laughs, or at least a modicum of charm. And to a certain degree, My Mom's New Boyfriend delivers. Henry (Hanks) returns from a three-year FBI assignment to find his once obese and idle mother transformed into, well, Meg Ryan. He is horrified by the constant flow of unsuitable boyfriends, and decides to police the situation, much to the disapproval of his free-thinking fiancée, Emily (Selma Blair). But when Marty (Ryan) hooks up with Tommy (Antonio Banderas), a known art thief who Henry has been assigned to trail, events take an interesting turn. There are some rib-tickling moments involving the sheer awfulness of having to observe one's mother playing the dating game, and Hanks is droll as the strait-laced son. But this could be Casablanca and we probably wouldn't notice, so glued were we to Meg Ryan's bizarre-looking lips. Fans of When Harry Met Sally (almost everyone, surely) have lost their romcom queen. And we have five words for you, Meg: out with the trout pout.