Frank Lovece

Kudos to writer-director Eric Schaeffer for doing a sexually graphic romantic comedy about fiftysomethings without being patronizing or cutesy. With both heart and guts, he honestly depicts how that moony-eyed, falling-in-love rush of endorphins is the same at 55 as it is at 15.

The story's a bore; its arrhythmic stutter of humor and drama, tension and calm never builds into any coherent emotional arc.

Formulaic but not entirely predictable, it's like old-school Disney, but without Tim Conway.

Suffers from wishy-washiness.

Penn's stark and unvarnished portrait of the challenged Sam makes even the hardest-to-swallow plot acceptable.

If you try to imagine a breezy Cary Grant movie in which Grant makes penis and fart jokes, you'll have some idea just how wretched it is.

Stiffly animated and featuring uninspired songs.

The film is a harmless extension of the skit, aimed at fans and best viewed as a showcase for Meadows's considerable talents.

Even the snowboarding scenes that might have been the visceral heart of this thing are cut in such a way that we never get more than a few seconds of full-frame athletic skill; despite the real-life snowboarders doing the stunt work (including Rob "Sluggo" Boyce, Tara Dakides and Javas Lehn), it all looks like editing-room cheats.

The real trouble is Jack: He's narcissistic and tough to like (Pontevecchio's fine, but a younger actor might not have brought an impression of arrested development to the character), and his crude sense of humor borders on the disgusting.

Though the electric organ score is unnecessarily ominous in clearly comical scenes, this is a fascinating early interpretation of what has become a classic tale.