There's nothing new to this romantic comedy premise. In fact, it's nearly the premise for every romantic comedy. I don't know why Hollywood suddenly decided to produce two movies with the premise in the title.
What is the premise? Two hot people who are friends taking entirely too long to figure out they are perfect for each other. My Best Friends Wedding, Friends with Kids, The Sure Thing and When Harry Met Sally are a few movies I can think of with the same premise, not to mention No Strings Attached. The four I mentioned execute the premise in a far more intelligent manner. For this concept to be believable, there HAS to be something to make the two people dislike each other.
Right off the bat, this movie does it wrong. There's no level of antagonism between Timberlake and Kunis. As such, I never doubted their compatibility, so I spent the entire movie not believing their behavior towards each other. When Harry Met Sally does this expertly - the first meeting shows the main characters constantly annoying each other. Time then melts that annoyance. Their turn of behavior is believable; it's something that most people have experienced at some point. In Friends with Benefits, Kunis and Timberlake immediately become friends, have no arguments and share lots of "date" moments. If they have all of that going in their relationship and are sexually attracted to each other, where is the tension in the relationship??
Does anyone else notice in movies, and tv shows, that in the beginning it seems like the main characters have other friends, but they disappear completely at some point?
Complaints aside, there is some funny stuff and I love the leads. There are worse ways to spend 100 minutes.
First Viewing: 2+2+2+2+2 = 10