When in Rome

When in hell, more like… Just when you thought the idea of basing a major plot point on a handful of ‘magic coins’ would’ve been deemed too ludicrous even for Hollywood, along comes ‘When in Rome’ and drags us right back to zero. Kristin Bell (Sarah from ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’) is the sassy, whip-smart gallery curator over in the Italian capital for her younger sister’s wedding. As with Sandra Bullock in ‘The Proposal’, it’s taken as read that she can’t have a job and a boyfriend at the same time, and so she begins to worry when she becomes an object of desire for five self-obsessed dimwits, the result of said ‘magic coins’ which are drunkenly swiped from a fountain. You get the sense that had this been stripped of all its magical realist idiocy, there might have been a sweet, throwaway romcom in there somewhere. As it stands, you’re just left to ponder how the hell this mirthless garbage got the green light.