Las Vegas Review-Journal

Shoddy rom-com will leave audiences wanting

- By Mark Kennedy The Associated Press

Not to kick off this review with a spoiler alert, but after seeing “What Men Want,” men and women will probably have the same desire: not to be ripped off by yet another dubious rom-com like this.

Taraji P. Henson tries a little too hard in a predictabl­e, genderswit­ching remake of the Nancy Meyers-led 2000 romantic comedy “What Women Want.” This time, a woman unlocks the power to read men’s minds. The premise has potential, but “What Men Want” is not funny enough, and blunt when it could have been sharp.

Henson plays Ali, a hardelbowi­ng, high-powered sports agent who is bitter and brash — “OK, Bridezilla, take a Xanax,” she tells one of her three best friends. To a coworker, she says: “I’m going to need you to calm down, baby man-child.” There’s a weird ’90s feel to the look and dialogue of this film, accentuate­d by a dusty soundtrack that features hits by TLC, Bell Biv Devoe, 2 Live Crew, En Vogue and Salt-n-pepa.

Ali is repeatedly passed up for promotion at her smarmy, all-male firm, which seems to leak testostero­ne in buckets.

“You don’t connect well with men,” she is told by the boss. To make partner, Ali vows to land the biggest sports target of the season: The No. 1 NBA draft pick. Along the way, she somehow bangs her head and then can hear the inner thoughts of any man nearby. That happens about 30 minutes in, which is an eternity of setup.

And what are men secretly thinking about? According to this film, it is fears of being fat, feeling lame, bodily functions, trying not to completely geek out about little things, mundane stuff like lost keys, and the occasional horrific X-rated bluntness.

If you expected director Adam Shankman and writers Tina Gordon, Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory to find rich material to discuss male privilege in these #Metoo days, think again. Men actually come off not so bad here. The women, though, end up worse: There’s a scene with all of Ali’s best friends wrestling during an awful, weave-yanking cat fight at a church that’s the nadir of filmmaking in 2019.

Ali learns to use nuggets of insight into coworkers’ minds to gain an advantage and falls for a boyfriend whose inner thoughts seem to be pure. But Ali also learns that it’s not what’s in men’s minds that really counts. It’s what’s in their hearts.

Henson does the best she can with this material, attempting Lucille Balllevel physical comedy. But she’s laboring and often overshadow­ed by the one unpredicta­ble spark in the film: Erykah Badu. The singer-songwriter is in rare form here as an off-kilter fortune-teller, shooting electricit­y in every scene, while small roles by Tracy Morgan and Pete Davidson are oddly flat.

The script is uneven and heavy, with some of the only jokes coming from Badu and a few movie references to “Black Panther” and

“Get Out.” Mostly, this is a film that still thinks people having a hard time navigating a beaded curtain is funny and that surprise S&M sex is hysterical.

Another thing that seems forced in “What Men Want” is the tremendous amount of alcohol sucked down. There’s day-drinking, blackout nights and cocktails at work. Maybe if alcohol was offered to the audience, this whiff of a film would be better received.

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