Laws Of Attraction review

Damning with faint praise is the easy option, but it's hard to avoid with Laws Of Attraction. Yes, it's amusing (in places) and yes, it's entertaining (at times). It's also formulaic, toothless and, come the end, faintly disappointing.

Squaring off for what seems like round 5,037 in the battle of the sexes, Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan play opposing divorce lawyers applying their talents - - she chilly and efficient, he smooth and easygoing - - to the case of the dissolving celebrity couple. The pair head off to Ireland to resolve their clients' spat over a castle. They bicker all the way. They get drunk. They wake up married.

It starts off sparkily enough, Moore and Brosnan parrying half-decent one-liners with real gusto, but things run dry as the vitriolic vitality drains away to be replaced by sticky sentiment. Out go the verbal volleys, in come various speechifying moments as the actors ill-advisedly pause to contemplate love. Prime Sunday afternoon fluff, it's acceptably funny but little more.