Bell can't stop the fall of Rome

When in Rome

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson
Starring Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Will Arnett, Jon Heder, Dax Shepard, and Danny DeVito
Opens January 29

Full disclosure: I'm a guy. The only reason I agreed to review this film was on the promise that there would be many scenes with Kristen Bell, and in that respect, the film didn’t disappoint. In fact, I can hardly recall a scene that didn’t feature the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star, but that might be because my mind has done its best to forget any scene not featuring her, in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. Hell, there are even two scenes where Kristen Bell is jogging. Jogging. Kristen Bell. In sweat pants! If When in Rome survives at the box office at all — which is certainly up for debate — it will only survive on the merits of Kristen Bell’s ass.

Beth Harper (Bell) is a young workaholic museum curator. Plus, she’s single. But she doesn’t have time for boys or love because she’s too busy trying to get cell phone reception in Rome, where her sister (Alexis Dziena) is getting married to her boyfriend of only two weeks. There, Beth meets Nick (Josh Duhamel), whose character is so irrelevant he’s principally defined by the fact that he was once hit by lightning while playing a football game. He also walks into walls sometimes and falls down manholes on occasion — but then again, who doesn’t?

While at her sister’s wedding, Beth falls for Nick, but then sees him with another lady, quickly leading her to conclude that love doesn’t exist, causing her to crawl drunkenly into some magical “Fountain of Love.” Disenchanted, she removes coins from the fountain belonging to four men (Will Arnett, Jon Heder, Dax Shepard, and Danny DeVito) and one poker chip, unwittingly giving them all giant hard-ons for our protagonist. It’s a ridiculous premise, but the script is bad enough that it seems to fit.

The suitors follow her to New York, and in a series of non-amusing scenes demonstrating how kooky people can be when they’re in love, she discovers that the poker chip from the fountain belonged to Nick, who also seems to be unusually devoted to her. Now, she must attempt to break the spell in order to discover whether Nick truly loves her.

Between prat falls, broken heels, “hilarious” overweight sidekicks, and sassy Italian grandmothers, the rom-com staples are almost innumerable and nauseating in degree. Fans of Arrested Development (who I’m sure will be seeing this film in droves) will be disappointed by that fact that Will Arnett doesn’t play the magician character — that part instead went to Jon Heder, who we all know isn't capable of anything remotely magical.

This movie fails in so many ways that it almost begins to succeed. The first 20 minutes are so bad that I lowered my expectations to Patrick Dempsian levels and was at least able to enjoy the moments that the characters weren’t talking. Danny DeVito delivers perhaps the movie’s only funny line, which I will write here to spare you the trouble of sitting through the entirety of the film: “There isn’t an emotion on Earth that can’t be expressed through sausage.” Well said, Danny DeVito. Well said.