Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

The decade of the 80s is often said to be the least innovative 10 years in movie history. Formulaic romance flicks, slapstick comedies and their 5 sequels apiece, and slasher horror movies and their sequels were all significant reasons for this label. Another movie "genre" that beat itself into the ground during the eighties was the teen sex flick. As the nineties have closed and the new millennium has approaced, you can see a similar pattern developing at the box office. Porky's is now American Pie. Friday the 13th 6 is now I Haven't Forgotten What I Still Know About What You Did Last Summer.

40 Days and 40 Nights, overall, is simply another installment in the seemingly endless series of movies about how all guys ever think or talk about is sex, and how women willingly and easily fall into the sack with any man who will have them, except of course the token fat guy. Admittedly, 40 Days is an above-average teen sex flick, but even the best Menudo album is still a Menudo album.

Josh Hartnett plays Matt, a college graduate who doesn't know what a "tryst" is, working in a small start-up dot-com company which employs slackers and women who dress like sluts. He is still lovesick for the woman he split up with 6 months earlier, Nicole. This poor sap is able to woo women into bed with him simply by batting his eyes, but he finds an "emptiness" in this casual sex (for the 1 percent of the audience who didn't connect the black hole hallucinations to "emptiness"). When Nicole gets engaged, Matt decides that the only way to get over her is to quit having sex, or even masturbating, during the 40 days of Lent.

The movie kicks off to a very promising start from here. Matt meets an interesting (if not incredibly attractive) girl named Erica (Shannyn Sossamon) in a laundromat. Matt realizes that there is more to life and relationships than sex, that a date consisting of a bus ride and conversation can be stimulating.

However, once the plot thickens, it also sours. Matt's roommate Ryan, the token "sex is life" guy of this film (frankly, I'm shocked that Seann William Scott wasn't cast for this role), tells Matt's coworkers about his plan. The coworkers proceed to set up an online betting pool whereby participants can place bets on when they believe Matt will stumble. Because, as we all know, no man has ever gone 40 days without sex or masturbation. At least, this (common) feat has yet to be documented by Hollywood.

The Website is apparently seen by everyone, because later that day, Erica happens upon it and is, predictably but irrationally, p*ssed about the site, somehow interpreting Matt's Lent commitment as a science experiment involving her. Erica makes a habit of irrational frustration throughout the movie, later scolding Matt for not telling her about his ex-girlfriend Nicole. Because we all know that guys are supposed to discuss their ex-girlfriends on the first date, right? Right?

As the movie progresses and Matt's libido remains unsatisfied, he becomes something reminiscent of a heroin addict on his 30th day of being "clean." He is pale, barely awake, and paranoid. Adding to the frustration of not being able to physically function while carrying unreleased seminal fluids, women continue to try to get into his pants, and coworkers devise various schemes to make him break Lent on days they have bet on. Even Nicole gets in on the action. When her fiance breaks off the engagement, she comes to Matt for consolation, and after less than two minutes has seemingly forgotten about her ex-fiance and focused her attention on bedding Matt. When Matt refuses, Nicole becomes the typical ex-girlfriend uber-b*tch bound and determined to ruin his life.

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Perhaps I am not the best source for a review of this film. Perhaps I do not understand the difficulty of going forty days without sex, though I can say that I was not a blubbering zombie by the end of my 22 years of abstinence. Perhaps I have a hard time sympathizing with a 20-something who lives in a fantasy world where women get naked for you midway through "Hello."

More likely, however, I've simply grown tired of movies that stereotype men as horny baboons and women as overly-willing gatekeepers. I realize that it's a comedy, and exaggeration of roles is used as a comedic tool, but when the same exaggeration is applied to every sex comedy, it loses its humor and becomes an accepted part of culture.

If you dig deeply into the movie, and overanalyze a bit, you will find subtle messages about the meaninglessness of sex, male and female sexual role reversal, and the societal pressure applied to people who don't conform to norms. However, if the filmmakers intended for this movie to be satirical, they did not execute it well. They made a modern movie with good intentions into another typical sex comedy.

Those subtle good intentions are enough to warrant a second star for the film, but not a recommendation.

Recommended: No

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age