Dumbed-down romantic comedy hasn't a 'Ghosts' of a chance

"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" strikes me as the kind of superficial, witless romantic comedy conceived on a dare between a director and a screenwriter during a weekend bender.

"Hey," says the director. "I'll bet you can't whip out a script about an emotionally stunted, handsome Lothario who gets visited by three ghosts who harass and threaten him until he gets his mind right and settles down with one woman, like all men are supposed to."

"Sure I could," replies the writer. "It'll be just like Charles Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol.' Only instead of Marley's ghost, we'll get Michael Douglas to play naughty Uncle Wayne, who comes back from the dead to warn his selfish, hedonistic nephew Connor Mead, played by Matthew McConaughey, that ghosts will come to make him a better man."

"Great," the director says. "It can't be as awful as that other comedy based on the same source material, that utterly incoherent political mess 'American Carol.'"

"No," the writer agrees. "This will be a masterpiece where the Ghost of Girlfriends Past will be Connor's middle-school girlfriend. The Ghost of Girlfriends Present will be his current secretary and the Ghost of Girlfriends Future will be a mysterious blonde in a flowing white robe."

"That doesn't make sense. The first two women aren't ghosts. They're not even dead," the director says.

"So?" the writer retorts, "What's your point?"

"And who is the mysterious blonde?" the director asks.

"Who cares? This is just another lame vehicle for McConaughey to play his patented, slack-jawed, noncommittal Peter Pan character redeemed by true love before the final curtain. Audiences don't care about boring stuff like internal logic anyway."

Now, I have no idea if this conversation really took place, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The dialogue in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" spoon-feeds its information to us as if we're watching a kiddie cartoon.

"Marriage is a corrupt and hateful institution!" Connor proclaims at the wedding rehearsal of his little brother (Breckin Meyer) and his fiance (Lacey Chabert).

Bridesmaid Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner), the girl Connor has been in love with since they were kids, lays it all out for us. She explains Connor, an arrogant doofus who breaks up with three women during a conference call on SKYPE, is a really a good guy on the inside. He just needs to bring his insides out.

Mystery solved. Personality explained.

Meanwhile, Connor constantly tells us everything he's doing and feeling, in case we're too stupid to understand. (When he looks for a drink, he utters, "Alcohol! Alcohol!" in case we don't know he's looking for a drink.)

"Ghosts" visually and verbally pays homage to Alastair Sim's 1951 classic "Scrooge," but does nothing inventive or clever with the time-tested material. Just for fun, Jenny slips in a "Wizard of Oz" simile when she compares Connor to the Tin Man - no heart.

Curiously, "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" doesn't possess one, either.

As directed by Mark Waters (who gave us "Just Like Heaven" and the "Freaky Friday" remake) "Ghosts" is a bloodless, passionless romantic comedy where the main couple communicates their love by rote, not heart.

Besides, why would anyone want to see a movie when all the major laughs are already in the commercials and theatrical trailers?

"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"

Rating: 1½ stars

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas, Breckin Meyer, Emma Stone

Directed by: Mark Waters

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 (language, sexual situations, drug references). 115 minutes.