At the beginning of "What's Your Number?" we see a character played by Zachary Quinto, fresh off of an evening of coital bliss with Ally Darling (Anna Faris), rocking an awesome T-shirt that reads, "Save the Fucking Earth." When the scene ends, Quinto disappears, never to return.
That is the highlight of "Number," a terrible movie that features a lot of really good actors.
If someone told me there was a movie coming out with Quinto, Chris Evans, Anna Faris, Blythe Danner, Andy Samberg, Aziz Ansari and Chris Pratt (the last two both of TV's "Parks and Recreation"), I'd be ecstatic.
The failure of "Number" is not because of any of them; it's just a poorly made film. This is the kind of movie that highlights terrible people, magnifies the worst qualities of them romantically speaking, heaps a ludicrous, completely make-believe "rule" upon them and then has the characters doing completely illogical things, things that go against human nature even, for the sake of fitting the three-act structure.
Ally is a woman hitting her 30s who isn't yet married, which, in romcom speak, means she lives a horrible life as a vagabond outcast from the rest of the female gender, who are all properly hitched by age 26.
When she reads an article in a crappy women's magazine, she learns that statistically speaking, women who have 20 or more partners never marry. So the number that the title refers to pertains to the number of sexual partners a person has and is not the somewhat more obvious (and sensical) request for one's digits.
Of course, in romcom land this means once you have 20 or more partners your womb shrivels like a raisin, your breasts sag and you develop blisters and pus-filled sores on your face, never to find love again. Ally has slept with exactly 20 different people, so she of course panics and decides to re-visit her exes, thinking it her only shot at love.
She enlists the help of Colin (Evans), the good-looking cad who lives across the hall. He seems a good guy, though a bit of a layabout who sleeps with women then hides out in Ally's apartment to avoid having to face them the next morning. Of course, because Ally is the plucky protagonist for this piece, the two of them become fast friends.
So the two of them stalk seek out her exes, doing a little undercover work to see if any of them might be a good fit to marry her be her boyfriend what sounds the least psychotic? In doing so, they exhibit romantic chemistry...hmm...maybe they should just date?
The script is devoid of any charm, good jokes or reason to continue watching because there's really no reason to care about these people, other than we paid for the right to watch them twisting in the wind over their continued terrible decisions. The filmmakers' idea of a reason to laugh is saying the words "Facebook," "Twitter" and "Tweet" because those are relatable to everyone and therefore are hilarious, I suppose.
Will Anna find one of her "favorite" exes just as the fires of passion begin to kindle with Colin? Of course. Then what will happen? Will she shrug and say, "Well, I got myself a pretty great guy, I think," or will she say "Oh no, I've been looking for this guy...forget this one that wants to be with me, I just have to finish playing this pointless game"? (Before you answer, let me answer this question with another question: Which of those two scenarios lends itself to having a race-against-time chase to run down the heroine's true love? Er...spoiler alert. Kinda.).
It's a shame because with a cast like that, there is a lot of potential. But as the old adage goes, you can't make a good movie with a bad script.
Special features include an extended version of the film, deleted scenes and additional flashback dates and a theatrical trailer — a standard haul that, if you're interested in watching, more power to you. I personally couldn't get this movie over quickly enough.
Film: 2 Yaps
Extras: 3 Yaps