The cinematic combination of Reese Witherspoon (“Monsters vs. Aliens”), Owen Wilson (“Little Fockers”), Jack Nicholson (“The Bucket List”) and Paul Rudd (“Dinner for Schmucks”) sounds like it would go somewhere — they’re all talented, funny actors. But no such luck. Instead, in “How Do You Know?” this cast of accomplished actors is forced onto a rather dull host of characters who bumble around the screen in an awkward mix.

"How Do You Know?"

At Quality 16 and Rave
Columbia

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Witherspoon plays Lisa, an out-of-work softball player, who is dating Matty (Wilson), a successful baseball player. Then, Lisa meets George (Rudd), a businessman who is being indicted thanks to the wrongdoing of his father (Nicholson), and soon finds herself caught in a love triangle with Matty and George. Basically, it’s another typical romance — it just has an attempted sports angle. Athletics is in no way relevant to the general plot of the movie; it seems that every single career possibility for women in romantic comedies has been exhausted.

But that’s the thing — as much as the film tries to be fresh and relevant, it can’t. Lisa doesn’t know if she can settle down, get married and have children. So at first, we think that maybe this movie might be different. Maybe she won’t end up with either guy or, who knows, maybe she’ll end up with both. Instead, surprise, surprise, the “normal plan” works for her and she finds love and most likely lives happily ever after. The whole movie ends up being a disappointment.

It’s not like we should have expected much else. The previews pretty much gave away any funny parts and Jack Nicholson’s character (by far the most interesting) is relegated to a minor role. “How Do You Know?” remains an incredibly average movie about seemingly average people with very nice apartments whose lives are infused with some lukewarm romance. But this is often a problem with all those PG-13 romantic comedies — it’s not as though the movie is completely unbearable, just unbearably uninteresting.

Part of it probably stems from the fact that the two lead male characters (played by Wilson and Rudd) are completely flat. They’re not even funny. And forget about realism. Rudd’s character is too busy being the “better guy” to develop a personality of his own, while Wilson’s character is too busy being an asshole. Just as Witherspoon’s character falls into the trap of being an ordinary heroine, the men end up as romantic stereotypes as well.

And sometimes, the ordinary romance works for movies. But for some reason, it just doesn’t work in this one. Part of that problem could be because no one wants to see these actors in these roles. It’s unnatural. Most people want Wilson like he was in “Zoolander” or Rudd like he was in “Knocked Up.” No one wants to see them acting like average guys with no sense of humor. Movies are supposed to take an audience somewhere else, to make them realize something they didn’t know before. “How Do You Know?” doesn’t do that, making the film as questionable as its title suggest.