‘Along Came Polly’

Directed by John Hamburg

Starring Ben Stiller Jennifer Aniston

Universal

96 minutes

Rated PG-13

Grade: D-

‘Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!’

Directed by Robert Luketic

Starring Kate Bosworth Topher Grace Josh Duhamel

Dreamworks

90 mins

Rated PG-13

Grade: B

‘Chasing Liberty’

Directed by Andy Cadiff

Starring Mandy Moore Matthew Goode

Warner Bros

120 minutes

Rated PG-13

Grade: C

The only way to buy a romantic comedy is to believe in the couple at the center of the farce. You can pair any number of adorable stars together for that ultimate Hollywood premiere glow, but if there isn’t, say, chemistry between the two then you might get something like the sodden miscasting of Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson as bickering would-be lovers in “Alex and Emma.” Or you might just get Ben Stiller wooing Jennifer Aniston in a movie much like “Along Came Polly.”

Stiller – a man who can scarcely go a movie without playing a wincing fussbudget neurotic – plays Reuben Feffer, top Risk Analyst at Indursky Insurance, a man who’s job assessing risky behavior has led him to become an uncontrollably compulsive worry-wart. Reuben thinks he’s found the least worrisome marriage partner in real estate agent Lisa (Debra Messing) – that is, until he finds her cheating on him on the second day of their honeymoon with a nudist scuba-diving instructor (a newly buff Hank Azaria, with a thick, plummy French accent.) Dejected, Reuben slinks back to New York City to recover and decides to begin anew by asking out free-spirited Polly Prince (Aniston), a former middle school classmate he bumps into at an art gallery event.

It’s believable that these two opposites would go on a first date together. What isn’t feasible is that these two would ever go on a second date together, let alone fall in love. Reuben has irritable bowel syndrome; Polly takes him to an ethnic Moroccan restaurant. Can you guess what happens? Jokes abound involving an aging, blind ferret, Reuben’s weak bowels and the embarrassing process of “sharting.” The writer-director, John Hamburg, comes off like a one-man Farrelly brothers wannabe, piling the crudities on top of the supposedly sweet romance. But when the romance isn’t believable the whole mess comes crashing down.

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell what Polly sees in such an irritatingly obsessive, insecure, controlling dork. The senselessness of it all may stem from the fact that Polly is a nerd’s idealized dream of a free-spirited woman.

The cast also includes Alec Baldwin, channeling too many obnoxious-Jew stereotypes as Reuben’s boss, Bryan Brown as an Australian mogul and adventurer and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, getting in touch with his inner Jack Black as Reuben’s cheerful vulgar friend – another witless, unbelievable relationship. Stiller was hilarious doing this routine in “There’s Something About Mary” and funny in “Meet the Parents.” Here he suggests the excruciating experience of watching the Farrelly brothers with a lobotomy.

Sometimes all a movie needs is the right casting to make it sparkle. “Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!” is a sweet, cheerful, unexpectedly sharp romantic comedy in which Rosalee Futch (Kate Bosworth), a good girl in the small West Virginia hamlet of Frasier’s Bottom, wins a chance to go out on a date with the Hollywood ‘It boy’ Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel, of the TV series “Las Vegas”) much to the chagrin of her loyal, secretly-in-love-with-her friend Pete (Topher Grace, “That 70’s Show.”)

It sounds like the silliest and slightest of ideas to come down the date movie pike in a long time, but the movie – surprise! – is a pleasant sitcom triangle. It helps that the three leads make it go down easy. Bosworth, a charming blonde with actual acting chops, is practically iridescent as the glowing Rosalee – conveying the humor, heart and vulnerability beneath her character’s perky fa