Critic's Grade: D-

Frank's film tip: You'll have a ghost of a chance looking for genuine spirited laughs as playboy Matthew McConaughey is haunted by his bounty of babes in the convincingly flimsy fantasy romancer GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST

There is one amazing thing that you can say about the flaccid featherweight fantasy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past in that it managed to do a handful of cinematic crimes in one sweep. First, it destroyed whatever credibility legendary scriber Charles Dickens had in his cherished “A Christmas Carol” gimmickry of revisiting spirits to keep one’s soul grounded. Secondly, it reminds us how weak-kneed mainstream Hollywood romance comedies continue to be strained in imagination and conception. Thirdly, it reinforces how much that bland box office boy-toy Matthew McConaughey has overstayed his welcome in these aforementioned fluffy fantasies.

Director Mark Waters’s (“Mean Girls”, “Freaky Friday”) odious romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past has all the depth and charm of an unwashed pillow case. Needlessly unimaginative and cloying, this predictable puff piece barely registers as a trivial footnote let alone a synthetically spry comedic romancer dealing with acquainted love and the afterlife. One can definitely dismiss Waters’s flimsy fare as yet another transparent tease aiming to falsely tickle the funnybone in the name of stale-minded chuckles. Tediously tepid, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past couldn’t make a sensitive underarm react with a two-ton feather as its catalyst.

Screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the tandem behind the insufferable holiday hoax Four Christmases, convey nothing particularly original or distinctive in this notoriously sketchy, belabored material. Curiously, there is little asked for lead McConaughey to do in this vacuous venture other than to routinely portray this impish cad playfully going through the motions. In other words, it’s business as usual for McConaughey as he foolishly struts through the staid Ghosts of Girlfriends Past like an airhead that forgot to grab his umbrella while knowingly heading into a rainstorm.

Roguish photographer Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a ladies man and his so-called deadly charm knows no boundaries when it comes to the female persuasion. Connor is the typical womanizer as he goes through curvaceous cuties like a hot knife through a stick of butter. It doesn’t bother Connor to dismiss a handful of women in one sitting so long as new fresh “meat” is around the bend to provide new opportunities for conquering his carnal cravings.

Naturally, Connor is quite insensitive, self-centered, cocky, self-indulgent and an overall smooth operator. Is there any woman out there that can contain this skirt-chasing narcissist and set him on the right path? Enter Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner courageously filling the shoes of a surprisingly missing Kate Hudson, McConaughey’s usual female foil). Jenny happens to be Connor’s childhood friend and former lover. Get this...Jenny is actually a sensible woman and not the familiar brand of bimbos that Connor is used to scoring with so effortlessly. Additionally, Connor finds himself attracted to Jenny in a constructive, meaningful way that is very foreign to him. How in the world did a smart and independent gal such as Jenny tap into the empty consciousness of a suave knucklehead like Connor Mead?

In the film’s cheesy attempt to force feed some redemption into Connor’s vacant soul, he is confronted with the army of ghost-like women that he has been intimate with over the years (Jenny is omitted as one of the scores of women in ghostly form). It is all these misguided tarts that bedded down Connor and blindly gave their bodies and hearts to this womanizing worm. Now they literally haunt him as he struggles to find his emotional bearings with Jenny—the one true soulmate that he regrets taking for advantage in his sordid playboy past.

The film’s subplot involves the New York-based Connor heading back to his home base in Rhode Island to see his brother Paul (Breckin Meyer) get married to his prissy and controlling fiancee Sandra Volkom (Lacey Chabert). Of course the running joke is that Connor has rubbed footsies with a few of the bridesmaids and eagerly looks to take on a whole new chapter by trying to scoop the intimacies of the bride’s mature but comely mother Vonda (Anne Archer). Michael Douglas (Archer’s “Fatal Attraction” co-star) plays spirit Uncle Wayne, Connor’s woman-chasing mentor that has come back to knock some sense into his wayward nephew by warning him that finding that one special love in his life would be the ideal proposition for him to consider seriously.

Formulaic and forgettable, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past hopefully will disappear into thin air unlike the nagging spooky lasses that uneventfully bombard the big screen for an excruciating 100 minutes.

Frank rates this film: * 1/2 stars (out of 4 stars)

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