Opposites Attract

Katherine Heigl is intent on happening, and with her latest, The Ugly Truth (directed by Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law, and 21 helmer Robert Luketic), she just may be a step closer to succeeding in her quest.

America, your new Sweetheart wants you. Whaddya say?

OK, I’ll admit it: I thought this movie was going to, well…suck.

It didn’t.

Point 1 for star and executive producer Heigl.

Its trailer made this late-summer rom-com look so…cutesy and by-the-book, which it is in many levels. But it’s also surprisingly, say, risqué, more so than I thought it would be. (Heigl says “f---,” and “c---.” Gasp!)

It’s uptight-girl-meets-fun-loving-boy, see them resist each other only to, natch, eventually fall in love with each other. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

Except, The Ugly Truth is packin’ a few surprises of its own, enough to elevate the standard-issue quality of its oft-amusing 95 minutes, but not enough to push the envelope and really make them memorable.

Heigl, who has been making confident trips to the big screen in recent years with 2007’s Knocked Up and last year’s 27 Dresses – leaving behind the comfort and numerous off-cam controversies of TV’s Grey’s Anatomy – is easy to watch as Abby Richter, a highly efficient Sacramento morning-show producer.

Abby’s a proactive gal: she knows exactly what she wants in every area of life, including men (and she has the checklist to prove it). Her problem is this square in which she leaves is limiting – she’s romantically challenged.

Actually, her real problem, or what she perceives it to be, is the arrival at work of public-access TV personality Mike Chadway (300’s Gerard Butler), a hardcore dude’s dude who’s unabashed in his preaching the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick.

Both are archetypes of the most extreme kind. She’s a prude, he’s a crude. Obviously, it’s a match made in heaven, and you can guess what happens, so you really don’t need to watch what happens, unless you really want to see Heigl have on orgasm on screen.

At a restaurant table.

Courtesy of a pair of vibrating black lace panties given to her by Butler, which is part of a subplot involving Abby trying to be a different version of herself, naturally per Mike’s instruction, to bag her hot doctor neighbor (if she gets him, then he quits the show – and if you know your rom-coms, then you know this is a classic, if cliché contraption, and you should be shuddering at the thought of it).

Point 2 for chutzpah. And for pulling it off.

The movie does come alive when Butler’s on screen. He has a knack for putting the “man” in commanding when he dispenses borderline questionable advice. But he somehow makes it work, so a point for him, too. He and Heigl sizzle when they’re together, but in a so-so hamburger kinda way, not like a juicy steak. That’s an automatic half-a-point deduction right there.

And so I say that when a movie makes me hungry more than it leaves me with a bellyful of entertainment, you know it’s just OK.

And I know both stars can do better.

Adding up all the points I give The Ugly Truth…

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Sony Pictures.