'Two Weeks Notice': Two Hours Wasted

Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock star in the romantic comedy "Two Weeks Notice." (Warner Brothers)

"ONLY THAT which is the other gives us fully unto ourselves."

So sayeth the great spiritual teacher Sri Yogananda – at least according to one of the characters in "Two Weeks Notice," a numbingly unfunny romantic comedy that has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment or giving fully unto anyone, unless that which is given is a steaming platter of horse manure.

Okay. It does have Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, if either of them floats your boat. But if you can't swallow the fact that Bullock's Lucy Kelson, a perky but brainy leftist lawyer, would take a job as corporate counsel for Grant's scum-sucking developer George Wade (a kind of Donald Trump with a British accent and better hair), only to fall in love with him despite their obvious, ahem, differences, well, then, I suggest you go see something more down to earth. How about, say, "Maid in Manhattan," another Cinderella story whose premise concerning the love affair between a firebrand hotel maid and an unctuous politician from the moneyed classes is nowhere near as implausible?

Oh well. Some people will sit through anything if it means they get to watch Sandra Bullock wrinkle her nose and Hugh Grant stammer and bat his bedroom-lidded baby blues – particularly if they've been handed free tickets, as the overly generous preview crowd I sat with was. As for me, I hated every minute of it, particularly the scene where Lucy, in tennis whites, is about to have explosive diarrhea while stuck in rush-hour traffic – hoo ha, now that's good comedy! – and George has to carry her to a nearby RV bathroom. (Yes, I get paid to do this.)

I was sooo not into this movie, my mind kept wandering to the craziest things. Like how George's line, "Luce, wait!," an exclamation meant to persuade his attorney and soon-to-be love interest not to quit (see the title of the film), comes out sounding more like "Lose weight!" You know, that's actually not that odd, considering that Bullock's character is a compulsive overeater. Hence the fecal urgency scene, not to mention a recurring bit of shtick in which she pigs out on six or seven different entrees from a Chinese restaurant.

The rest of the time, when I was not calculating the air-time charges for Grant's and Bullock's phoned-in performances, or wondering what mischief first-time director Marc Lawrence (writer of "Miss Congeniality" and "The Out-of-Towners") would get himself into next, I amused myself by making shadow puppets with my hand in front of the movie screen.

Look, it's a dog. Woof! Woof!

TWO WEEKS NOTICE (PG-13, 100 minutes) – Contains, according to the MPAA, "sex-related humor," which is true, except for the humor part. Area theaters.