Ya know how kids on the playground in grammar school will do anything to gain popularity amongst their peers, no matter what the cost? Okay, now, let’s say the only thing on that playground is a sandbox. To be a member of the coolest group in school you have to do several things with the sand. (1) Throw it at a social outcast. (2) Eat it. (3) Shove it down your pants, and spin around, in attempts to get it out, till you become dizzy and barf. Do all this without the teacher catching you. Yep, pretty disgusting, but not all that abnormal.

     Now, please indulge yourselves in this analogy. Young Ben Stiller is in the third grade. He wants to be cool. So what does he do? Throw the sand, eat the sand, shove it down his pants and spin around till he throws up. Typical kid. Now, picture this. Scratch that—don’t picture it—see it. Big Ben Stiller hasn’t learned to grow up. He’s thirty-eight-years-old and still wants to be popular. But instead of doing it with sand, he does it with his audiences. Human nature has overcome him. He’s become a greedy, unfunny little bastard. Now, instead of making inspired works of comic genius, and starring in hysterically wondrous movies, he goes for those which will obtain commercial success. Of course, this is perfectly natural, because all he really wants is the blingbling. Formula does sell over substance. The public thinks he’s a cool guy. However, us critics, the teachers, have caught him. Along Came Polly makes me want to put him into detention.

     In this movie, he plays Reuben Feffer, a man who gets married, but then dumps his wife when he catches her getting busy with the hot and nude scuba instructor on their honey-moon. Reuben assesses risk for a living, and according to his computer, she wasn’t all that bad of a choice for a wife. This event has simply sent him over the edge, leaving him quite depressed. That is, until he becomes reunited with Polly Prince (Jennifer Anniston), who went to middle school with him. They’re two opposites; Reuben is conservative about anything and everything in his life, while she “lives life on the edge,” according to him. However, they begin to develop feelings for each other, despite their contrasting lifestyles. The only question we’re left to “ponder” is: will he end up with her, the nutty one, or wipe the slate clean and start over with his wife? Oh, I really do wonder! What could the answer be?

     The movie on the whole isn’t as bad as Stiller’s performance, however. Despite the terrible script, Jennifer Anniston and supporter Phillip Seymour Hoffman are actually decent in their roles, giving it some flavor. I can honestly say there are many funny moments in Along Came Polly, even though hardly any of them involve the leading man. Reuben is just a loser. Not a likeable loser. Not a loser that gains our sympathy. Just a loser. In a perfect world, Stiller would keep away from mediocre teen fares, such as this one. However, we don’t live in that world. Too bad that too many stars value commercialism over quality. This fact, alone, is more than enough to make us movie buffs want to cry.

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