No Butts About It

By RICHARD CORLISS

Just one reason to adore Jennifer Lopez is that she'll try anything--and she usually makes it look good. In movies, for instance, she has played a dead Tex-Mex singer (Selena), been hugged by a big snake (Anaconda), come at Sean Penn like a famished scorpion (U-Turn), swapped repartee with George Clooney in a locked car trunk (Out of Sight) and gone into a trance to nab a serial killer (The Cell).

Sure, this is only acting--star acting, of an intensity and sultriness that stirs memories of such golden-age Hollywood names as Rita and Ava--but Lopez projects a cheery fearlessness in other venues too. Is she expected to plug her new picture and CD? Then she'll go on all the talk shows, even if it means being asked to discuss her boyfriend Sean ("Puff Daddy") Combs' imminent trial, during which, according to news reports, a witness may finger her as an accomplice. (Yes, she told Matt Lauer last week, she'd be willing to testify.) Maybe Lopez believes in honoring TV commitments, or maybe she simply has unsquashable cojones, but there's no doubt she's got It. She is what the old movie moguls would have called a game gal.

So bless her for trying something really daring: a sweet romantic comedy. Lopez's role in The Wedding Planner is as far from her typical persona as Doris Day is from Gladys Knight. This time she's Mary Fiore, a superefficient bridal manager who, minutes before the ceremony, can locate and subdue an absent father of the bride ("the FOB is MIA") but can't find a man for herself. Enter prince charming: Dr. Steve (Matthew McConaughey), who's handsome, funny and loves kids; he runs a local children's hospital. This being San Francisco, Steve must be gay, right? No, he's engaged--to a rich woman (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) whose wedding Mary is planning.

We imagine that, as writers Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis pitched their script, they kept punctuating the plot twists with "Get this!" But sharper filmmakers than Falk, Ellis and director Adam Shankman got this fluffy genre down perfect about 60 to 70 years ago. Nearly everything in this movie (the mistaken identity, the Italian-buffoon beau, the romancing and dancing, the heavy piano underscoring as the lovers zero in for a moonlit kiss) was done better by Fred and Ginger, Cary and Kate. The only innovation here is a scene in which Mary uses a Q-Tip to remove a statue's limestone penis that somehow got glued to Steve's hand. Onward and upward with the arts!

This is Lopez's whitest movie yet--white gowns, white-tie, white-collar, white bread. And darned if she can't play perkily yuppyish. Her Mary is smart, nice and sexy; if boys dreamed of future brides and not of instant hookers, she would star in a million fervid fantasies. The film is unlikely to win critical raves, but we'll give Lopez a pass on this one. The game gal can't win every game.

Besides, there may be a better show coming soon to a courthouse near you. "If you ever had a desire to serve on a jury," New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon told prospective jurors at the Puff Daddy trial last week, "I can assure you, professionally and personally, this will be a good one." Now that's a money quote.