ANYONE who survived “Life Stinks,” the death rattle of Mel Brooks’ filmmaking career, will approach any movie with the word “stinks” in the title with extreme caution.
That’s good advice for “Love Stinks,” a lame TV sitcom with big-screen ambition that’s almost touching in its hopelessness.
“Love Stinks” is an audience pleaser, at least to judge by the raucous laughter at the screening. And to be honest, there are a handful of very funny scenes that keep the pic from being a total waste of time.
By and large, though, the comic sensibility at work here is a racier version of the lowbrow, broadly accessible style that made writer-director Jeff Franklin rich as the creator of “Full House.”
Franklin’s TV background is all over the “Love Stinks” plot. Seth Winnick (“3rd Rock from the Sun’s” French Stewart) is a successful sitcom producer who falls head over heels for the hooterrific Chelsea (Bridgette Wilson) at the wedding of their pals Larry (Bill Bellamy) and Holly (supermodel Tyra Banks).
Chelsea’s perfect: tall, gorgeous, fun to be with, and equally crazy about Seth. But she moves aggressively to take over Seth’s life and force him to propose.
When he won’t, Chelsea bares her fangs, blowing her cutesy manipulative-minx act up into a gynecological Gotterdammerung, complete with a palimony suit, a restraining order, and dirty tricks involving guy hair-care products.
“Love Stinks” is a forthrightly misogynistic movie, but the anti-female attitude is fairly jovial, about on the same level as Comedy Central’s “The Man Show.”
Thematically, the movie most resembles “The War of the Roses,” but Franklin lacks either the chutzpah or the chops to bring off a gender-war satire as caustic and clever as that one.
His “Love Stinks” script does have its moments (including a smart, nervy ending), but his idea of cutting-edge comedy writing runs to the kind of vulgar, unfunny shtick that puts the gag in “gag.”
He also lacks a first-rate cast. For “Simpsons” fans who may have wondered how actor Troy McClure (“You might remember me from … “) would be in a real-life movie, Stewart’s mannered, stand-uppy performance as Seth gives a pretty good idea.
As for Wilson’s acting, let’s just say her va-va-va-voomish turn as a scantily clad lollapalooza represents career peaks.