Laws of Attraction
November 2004 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

There is nothing new or innovative in Laws of Attraction. It's the same "bickering couple falls in love" story on which Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy seemed to spend most of their mutual careers. While Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore are both fine actors and definitely nice to look at, neither of them brings any fresh air to this sub-genre.

Pity poor Audrey Woods (Moore). Though she is one of New York's preeminent divorce lawyers, she also spends her nights alone, save for the couch-potato company of her friends Ben and Jerry. Enter Daniel Rafferty (Brosnan), a disheveled divorce lawyer just returned to New York from L.A. Though he's a slob working out of an intensely cluttered walk-up office above a Chinatown grocery store and always seemingly unprepared, he's a whiz in court.

The pair meets repeatedly on opposite sides of cases, trading victories and becoming something of a gossip-column fixture. Facing off yet again in a split between a pop-punker (Michael Sheen) and his fashion-designer soon-to-be ex-wife (Parker Posey), the battling barristers end up taking a mutual trip to Ireland to inspect a contested piece of property.

The characters are paper-thin. Woods is a hard-working professional, but also enough of a klutz that she can be counted on to fall over whenever the movie is in need of a laugh, which turns out to be often. Rafferty is a successful lawyer, but seems to get by more on roguishness and nice hair than courtroom skill -- Remington Steele with a law degree vs. any Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock character. Posey and Sheen are clichés.

Considering that New Line so often delivers high-quality picture and sound, Laws of Attraction looks atrocious. Overzealous edge enhancement leaves jagged lines and halos all over the picture, and there is almost no contrast to speak of, allowing dark areas to run together. Color levels are good, with just a little bit of noise in Chinatown's reds. The greens of Ireland are lush and distinct, and nighttime scenes are mostly grain-free.

Since this is a character piece, sound is central. Voices are clear and have nice hints of depth, and the ambient backgrounds are mixed well, though they're not quite as immersive as you might expect -- standing on the steps of a New York City courthouse, you'd be surrounded by noise, not removed from it. The Irish-pub scene, however, is particularly good.

The only extras are two trailers and five deleted scenes. The deletions (or extensions) don't really add anything to the story, and while there is a bit of a spark in the alternate ending, it is even more of a letdown than the one we got. The credits for this film list a veritable army of "creators" involved: 11 executive producers, eight standard producers, and three screenwriters. If too many cooks spoil the broth, then we have probably found Laws of Attraction's fault. It is entirely bland, completely safe and insurmountably forgettable, raised from the basement of romantic comedies only by the light chemistry between its stars. If you want a good courtroom piece, go back to the Tracy-Hepburn source with Adam's Rib.

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