Where we do start with "Made of Honor"? And when can we stop?

At its best, a romantic comedy celebrates one of humanity's greatest yearnings: to give and to find the love of a lifetime. At its worst (and this is where "Made of Honor" comes in), it can leave you with a bad taste, not just in your mouth but in your soul.

Yow! "Seriously?" you might ask. Even with the doubly delectable Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan?

Even with.

Should we start with the incessant jokes about oral sex, for instance? Not presented in the clumsy, almost endearing way characters talk about it in Judd Apatow movies. (That's as much about male vulnerability as it is licentiousness.) It's more in the nudge-nudge way, as the filmmakers pander to the sleaziest instincts of the audience. It starts right away, as Dempsey's Tom, in his early college days, is seen at Halloween, dressed up as a cigar-sniffing Bill Clinton who goes chasing after a coed wearing a Monica mask.

Dempsey and Monaghan have it all, in terms of looks, likability and even how they blend together. But they're hapless prisoners in a nasty little caper that follows convention as conventionally as possible. Tom is a ladykiller, and Hannah (Monaghan) is the one woman he never quite seduces. Who becomes his best friend. And the one, he realizes, he has been in love with all along. Cue the impossibly wonderful Colin (Kevin McKidd), whom Hannah decides to marry. So she asks Tom to be her male maid of honor. You'll never -- ever! -- guess how this turns out.

-- Desson Thomson (May 1, 2008)

Contains profanity and sexual situations.