Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Bates (I), Terry Bradshaw (I)

5 out of 10 stars: When exactly did Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker become trademarked, commodified versions of themselves? It's a little easier to pin it down with home-boy McConaughey, who went from being a nifty Dazed and Confused slacker to Joel Schmuacher's khaki-butted discovery in A Time To Kill to naked-bongo-player stoner to -- it's in here somewhere! -- the poster boy to which all Men's Journal cover models aspire. That hair! Those teeth! Those abs! Once he started the post-bongo workout plan, McConaughey abandoned any of the Texas charm he had for a more bland Charm(Trademark) that landed him first in The Wedding Planner (remember the cute glasses that were supposed to make him look "smart"?) and then template-ized him in How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Strange, though he's only appeared previously in two romantic comedies, he's now associated with the genre in the way that Twinkies are with cream-filled snack food. There is no other. It's everywhere. It's the same no matter where you go. It's tastes the same to everyone. It's a product -- and so is he.

But Ms. Parker, oh Ms. Parker, where did you take a wrong turn? Where is geeky girl with the perfect comic timing in Square Pegs? The woman who set the sterotype of the ditzy blonde spinning in L.A. Story? The smart actress who could set the New York stage on fire? The quintessential cable TV heroine looking for love but keeping herself grounded? Even in the last icky Mikhail Baryshnkikov season of Sex and the City my heart went out to Carrie Bradshaw as she wiped Parisian dog poop from her Manolo Blahniks. But now, after the Oprah post-SATC appearance, the Gap ad campaign, the cutesy-named perfume, I've lost my I'd-love-to-have-lunch-with-her Sarah Jessica Parker. Now she'd most likely be on the menu, not reading it.

Both the prepackaged versions of McConaughey and Parker are on full display in Failure to Launch, a romantic-comedy-by-Cuisinart that has just enough spice in it to make it interesting but not turn it into a dish that'll knock your socks off. Set in a pre-Katrina New Orleans ruled by stately homes and appropriately dry docks, it's a paean to arrested adolescence that itself never manages to grow up. McConaughey is the 35 year old Trip, a boat broker/salesman of some kind who's living the high life at home, where his laundry's done, breakfast is made, and the floor's vacuumed even before he's out of the shower in the morning. And whenever he gets "the look" from a sexy paramour, he brings her home, where she gets understandably freaked by the fact that his mom still washes his underwear. Parker is interventionist Paula, who's hired by Trip's parents (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw) to empty their nest of its fledgling so they can apparently enjoy the benefits of retired life. Some kind of therapist (maybe?) from the way she talks, she's made her living getting grown men out of out the house and into a bachelor pad. So the hired pretty woman hooks up with the ladies' man to put her foolproof plan into action: instill enough confidence in him to get his own place, kiss him but never sleep with him, and woo him away from the 'rents into the real world.

Though it attempts to play up the business angle of things and show off both Paula and Trip for the emotionally-stunted, relationship-wrecking adults they are, Failure to Launch falls into that romantic comedy trap where it has to show how cute its lovebirds are, instead of portraying them as real people in any way. And though it does adhere to formula, Parker and McConaughey are given ample opportunity to rise above their material -- the script, by TV writers Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, is filled with more snappy one-liners than you'd expect in a 21st century studio comedy, and there's a great supporting cast for the two actors to spark off of. McConaughey even gets a crack at some physical comedy, as a bewildering subplot involves his perpetual attack by mild animals like dolphins and vegetarian lizards. However, both stars just fall back on their standard personas of late, which involves a lot of looking pretty, dressing nicely, and flashing sad eyes when appropriate. Everything McConaughey and Parker do is comfortable, predictable, and forgettable; it's bland on blonde.

The only saving grace of Failure to Launch is the number of actors who get to flail about in an appealingly eccentric manner on the fringes of the central love story. Bates and Bradshaw flesh out their parental characters nicely, Bradshaw more so, as he unabashedly undertakes a jaw-dropping nude scene. Zooey Deschanel, who could take a lead role like Parker's and bend it to her will, is a perfect rom-com antidote of nihilism, sarcasm, and unapologetic anger as Paula's roommate, a woman who has a death wish out for a garrulous mockingbird. And as McConaughey's adolescent-minded brethren, Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha are so appealing you can't help but wonder why Parker wouldn't fall for either of them before: Cooper is far more handsome, and Bartha, who's the true find of the movie, is the most charming, adorable nerd you could ever hope to meet online. Most everyone else in this movie makes at least an attempt to fly, but this movie's two stars are grounded from the start.