A thirtysomething man who still lives with his parents falls in love with the woman of his dreams and begins to suspect she has been hired by his parents as a way to get him out of the house. - skip ad - Genres: Comedy and Romance Release Date: March 10th, 2006 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and language. Distributor: Paramount Pictures Cast And Credits Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper Directed by: Tom Dey Produced by: Scott Rudin

A lame premise leads to equally lame comedy in Paramount's "Failure to Launch." Stars Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker put as much energy, winning smiles and comic business into their roles as possible, but it's a no-go from the start.

Essentially a sitcom with a poor "sit" from writers Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, the screenplay is peculiar in that some supporting roles are more interesting and quirky than the protagonists.

That means McConaughey and Parker get stranded with thanklessly predictable scenes, while Zooey Deschanel, Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw garner the film's few laughs.

Boxoffice should be equally as lame. Critics will have a field day with that title.

The film imagines the phenomenon of thirtysomething males still living at home with their parents has reached such epidemic proportions that there exists a profession for women whose job it is to coax/seduce these adolescent male adults from the nest. Parker plays one such "consultant" named Paula, who fell into the profession a few years earlier when she failed to extricate a beau from his mom and dad's house.

Her current though unaware client is McConaughey's Tripp, who at 35 looks upon the family home as a great B&B where Mom does the laundry, makes his bed and fixes a first-class breakfast daily. Apparently these guys run in packs: Tripp's only friends, Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper), also are stay-at-homers.

Realizing that Tripp is using them as a buffer between him and intimacy with the women he serially dates then abandons, his parents (Bates and Bradshaw) hire Paula to get him out of their house. Her routine is to form a romantic though nonsexual relationship with a client, which supposedly prompts him to move out immediately.

Anyone who attends even a half-dozen movies annually can pretty much predict the plot points this situation will lead to. In place of any story surprises, the writers have substituted ... biting animals.

In the course of the movie, Tripp gets bitten by a chipmunk, then a dolphin and, finally, what is described as a vegetarian lizard. Meanwhile, Deschanel and Bartha have a scene in which they hunt a noisy mockingbird, shoot it, then revive the bird with CPR. It's even less funny than it sounds.

In fact, this is a movie of comic distractions. Along with these stupid pet tricks, the characters play paintball games, go sailing and then rock climbing, anything to build a false sense of forward momentum into a story that basically has none.

Deschanel does have a fine time as Paula's sarcastic, possibly manic-depressive roommate, turning the character into a wonderful comic foil. Bradshaw, the co-host of "NFL on Fox," celebrates his return to film a quarter-century after his last performance in "The Cannonball Run" by subtly underplaying Tripp's amiable and goofy dad.

He pairs marvelously with Bates, a worrier in contrast to her carefree spouse; indeed, these two are the most convincing characters in the film. But whoever thought Bradshaw needed a nude scene should be turned over to the mockingbird killers.

Tom Dey's direction is routine. Tech credits on this film, shot in no less than three states -- Louisiana, Maryland and Alabama -- are unexceptional.