Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez (I), Justin Bartha

1 out of 10 stars

Oh, where to begin? The stunning lack of chemistry between the two stars that has us wondering why the hell we've been following their antics for the past year? The misbegotten screenplay that somehow got through the Hollywood system like Jayson Blair's falsified New York Times articles? The fact that this movie seems like the final product that's always been alluded to (but never fully shown) in every Hollywood satire about horrifying moviemaking, from S.O.B. to America's Sweethearts? Yes, Gigli is just about as bad as you've heard, though props must be given to at least one person (or team) – whoever's gotten Jennifer Lopez to work on her abs has done a superfine job. Girl, I can't look at your famous posterior, 'cause I want to check out that stomach! (Fortunately for us, Ms. Lopez wears a nice variety of midriff-baring tops.) J. Lo's abs may be the only thing you'll want to see in this movie, because for the rest of the time you'll be averting your eyes from the atrocities being committed in the name of star power and summer movie carnage. As a much better man than I once put it, "Oh, the humanity."

Okay, so Gigli doesn't rival the recent camp-fest that was Glitter, and while it may be one for the Golden Razzie Awards, recent so-bad-they're-good movies like Showgirls and The Bodyguard have no reason to fear that their tawdry golden fleeces will be ripped from their shoulders. Still, it's pretty godawful. Writer-director Martin Brest (who, really, needs to be locked up and force fed a diet of Saved By the Bell episodes to understand what he's wrought upon us) seemed to intend Gigli as some kind of meditation on fluidity between the sexes, with Ben Affleck's titular hitman, a macho dolt yanked from the extras pool of The Sopranos, learning that not everything is black and white in his world. Said black-and-whiteness extends both to the sexuality of his thrust-upon-him partner Ricki (Lopez, emphasis on the "thrust"), who claims lesbianism but seems charmed by his Travolta-esque helmet hair, or the (cue audience "awwwws") tender and innocent world-view of his captor, the mentally disabled Brian (Justin Bartha, who looks like he stepped out of Saved By the Bell itself). Yes, these two have a lot to teach Larry Gigli about life (unfortunately, none of it extends to his wardrobe or apartment – where's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy when you really need it?), and in between bizarre one-scene cameos from Christopher Walken, Lainie Kazan and Al Pacino (?!), the three create a kind of bizarre love triangle/dysfunctional family, all scored to the most hideously inappropriate schmaltz imaginable.

This, however, is the basic outline of a plot that Brest fills with the kind of monologues that are supposed to pass for clever intelligence but come off as awkward, pointless, and crude. A humdinger by Lopez, in which she lectures some slacker teens on "people skills" via a description of gouging out someone's eyeballs (sorry, you'll have to see the movie to see how exactly it plays out) is emblematic of Brest's approach to letting the characters express themselves, i.e. vent in a pseudo-intellectual manner that comes from watching half an Oprah episode. There's a tiny, tiny bit of energy in the set-up, as lame-ass Larry kidnaps his target, sets him up at home, and almost immediately is visited upon by Ricki, who's been called in to keep an eye on the two boys, but it's extinguished almost immediately. After a painful vanity scene in front of a mirror, in which Affleck struts and preens in a manner that Matt Damon might have made comic but just renders Affleck pathetic, Larry's informed that Ricki bats for the other team, and apparently she's an All-Star player. Perplexed but still kinda intrigued, he banters with her as they go about their job ("banter" in this case means repeating what the other has said a couple times), which includes sending a thumb through the mail (don't worry – even though it's supposed to be Brian's, they swipe one from a morgue) and keeping Brian from the clutches of the bad guys.

Soon enough, Ricki seems to care for Larry the Big Lug and decides to take him to bed – aside from the already-infamous come-on "It's turkey time, gobble gobble," Ricki inquires about the state of Larry's fingernails, berates him for his feminine way of examining them (a joke swiped from '90s sitcom Murphy Brown, of all places), and then proceeds to take him for a ride. Of course, she's on top, and from their gropings and tortured facial expressions, it looks like one of them had a leg cramp or ate a bad burrito. For this we've been following every move these two have made, not to mention enduring the sight of Lopez cooking for her man on Dateline NBC? It's enough to make one yearn for the days of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, when at least their onscreen lovefests allowed for some scintillating '60s fashions and maybe an Oscar-nominated song or two.

It's actually kind of sweet the way Affleck and Lopez interact, with each one takes a studious break from "acting" to let the other one emote, resulting in an angry face confronting an entirely blank one in response. It's a total draw as to who's worse – Affleck gains a huge lead in the beginning with Larry's dead-end demeanor, but Lopez pulls it out with a horrifying monologue comparing the penis to the vagina that's enough to make anyone rethink the concept of heterosexual physical interaction (or homosexual, for that matter – basically, it'll put you off sexual contact of any kind, including masturbation). By the end, they're just in painful limbo, and the person you most want to strangle is Brest, especially after he trots out Walken in a true car-crash of a cameo as a policeman looking for information. Pacino fares slightly better (though why the effeminate take, Al?), as he brings a sense of danger to the proceedings that's been lacking throughout the movie; granted, it's twofold danger, not knowing who his character may shoot and who the actor himself may flay with his scenery-chewing. Bartha, as the tagalong Brian, isn't an awful presence, but his oh-so-obvious instruction for his character must have been to watch Rain Man in the manner of shampooing one's hair – lather, rinse, repeat. And please, let's not speak of Ms. Kazan, who must bare her butt cheeks for an insulin shot, or Missy Crider, who as Ricki's former lover graphically and jarringly slits her wrists in Larry's kitchen ("Lady, you need some Band-Aids!" Brian tells her).

The notoriously reshot ending of the film (including the requisite slightly-different-hairstyle for Ms. Lopez) is indeed a true study in filmmaking-by-committee, as the characters suddenly grow schmaltzy hearts and betray anything about them that came before; one can feel the climactic shoot-em-up ending being averted as empty dialogue falls from the actors' lips line by line. Brest was notoriously dissatisfied with the changes himself, going so far as to threaten Revolution Studios head Joe Roth for what had been wrought. Suddenly, those movies in which a director hijacks his film to keep it from evil Hollywood hands seem all the more plausible. If I were the writer-director of Gigli, I would have shot myself upon seeing what the studio had done to my opus.

Oh wait, if I was the writer-director of this film, I would have shot myself and all involved way beforehand for actually creating this dreck. May Gigli someday rest in peace. Amen.