Even Adams can't salvage Irish road romance

"Leap Year" is another one of those plot-by-number, formula romantic comedies that doesn't trust a woman to choose between two lovers, so the movie does it for her.

You know what I'm talking about. A woman, torn between two men, can't decide which one is right for her, even though everyone in the audience has known it all the way through the movie.

Just as she finally chooses a suitor, a timely discovery bounces him out of contention. He's revealed to be a lout, a liar, a child molester, a con artist, a golddigger, insincere, shallow, materialistic, a clinging mama's boy or something else that tips the scales to the other guy.

So, the poor woman, robbed of her first choice, must accept the runner-up, who's the guy everyone in the audience picked for her in the first place.

Granted, this is SOP (standard operating plotting) for a Hollywood rom-com, but wouldn't it be nice, just once in a while, if the woman could be trusted to make up her own mind, and not have the decision be dictated by an 11th-hour character revelation?

What "Leap Year" lacks in novelty and freshness, it almost makes up for in charm. Most of that emanates from the radiant Amy Adams, who plays Anna, a cultured New York woman. She "stages" apartments with furniture and knickknacks to win over potential renters or buyers.

She not so secretly hopes that her four-year boyfriend, a successful heart surgeon named Jeremy (Adam Scott), will pop the question. He doesn't.

After he departs for a convention in Dublin, Anna's ditsy dad (John Lithgow in a virtual cameo appearance) regales her for the umpteenth time about the old Irish tradition of allowing a woman to ask a man to marry her if it's during Leap Year, Feb. 29.

Hey, that's just around the corner!

Apparently believing that it's against the rules to ask for a man's hand at any other time, Anna hops a jet for Dublin to go get her guy.

But a storm detours her to a small Irish village where she meets a tall, dark and dull bartender/cabdriver named Declan (Matthew Goode, who seems to think that a six o'clock shadow is all the character traits he needs).

She thinks he's ill-mannered and common.

He thinks she's snobby and a control freak.

They're both right.

Normally, he would not agree to drive Anna to Dublin, but he desperately needs money for his pub. Away they go, off on a road movie romance.

I'd tell you more about the story, but trailers and TV commercials for "Leap Year" tell you every major plot point, and suggest the ending.

So, not only doesn't "Leap Year" contain a whit of surprise or originality, the romance supposedly developing between stiff Anna and laid-back Declan never achieves liftoff.

Director Anand "Shopgirl" Tucker, perhaps sensing the absence of sparks between his lead actors, employs pop music montages to communicate the key emotional shifts in their relationship. No acting necessary.

Adams supplies Anna with infectious and perky cuteness. But Goode (also seen in Tom Ford's current drama "A Single Man") seems bored by his role, as if he were getting paid by the detached gaze.

Near the end of "Leap Year," a sad and rejected Anna races to the edge of a high cliff, and the scene plants the momentary idea that she might be considering suicide.

This is ridiculous in a formula rom-com, of course. The cliff scene is totally out of place in this forced, feel-good movie.

Yet, Anna jumping over the edge would have bumped up the surprise quotient.

After all, it's called "Leap Year," isn't it?

"Leap Year"Rating: #9733; #189;Starring: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John LithgowDirected by: Anand TuckerOther: A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG. 97 minutes