Julia Roberts should stop whining so much.

Slave to romance that I am, I went out and saw the new Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant flick, Notting Hill.

Here's the story. Big movie star Julia falls in love with little bookworm Hugh. That's about it. Go ahead and guess the ending, you're not gonna be too far off the mark.

This isn't an entirely bad film. Hugh is really quite charming, and quite funny. It's filmed in London by the folks who did Four Weddings and a Funeral, and they're from England, so it's got a lot of good "Look at how silly we English people are!" humor.

Leave it to the American to screw it up.

Julia is the biggest movie star in the world. That's the story, not real life. But we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she can't be with the man she wants, because she's world-famous and he's a regular Joe. Boo-hoo. I got tears streaming down my socks. Enough with this "It's so hard to be rich" junk! You don't wanna be rich? Then give it all up! Stop making movies and go to work at the local 7-11.

"Welcome to 7-11, would you like a Slurpee?"

"Hey! Didn't you used to be that big, famous movie star?"

"Yes. But now I rotate the hot dogs twice a day. I'm much happier now."

"Oh. OK. I'll take some nachos, pack of Marlboro Mediums, and a quick pick."

Yeah, that'll happen. Let's see if Hugh-boy still wants to jump your bones when you're making sure there's enough cherry syrup in the machine.

How unbelievable is this film? Julia wins a Best Actress Oscar for making a sci-fi flick. Right, when's the last time a sci-fi flick won anything that didn't come out of a computer? Puh-lease.

Still, I don't want my blatant disgust for Julia's predicament to sour the fact that otherwise, this was a pretty amusing film. Gotta hand it to the Brits, they know how to make a nice, funny, sweet romantic comedy. They should just leave the Americans out of the equation. I mean let's be honest, wasn't Andie MacDowell the worst part of Four Weddings and a Funeral anyway?

Now that I think about it, what is it with Hugh and American babes? How does he manage to boink Julia Roberts, Andie MacDowell and Julianne Moore but no Brits? Let's see him bag a babe from his own island!

To sum up. Hugh, good. Julia, not so good. English people, funny. Overall movie, amusing. And I think that pretty much says everything there is to say about Notting Hill.

I give Notting Hill 3 1/4 Babylons. Nothing awe-inspiring, but a pleasant afternoon in fantasy land.

Editor's Note:

Please don't let the SMC's rather enlightened review fool you. I heard that the SMC was originally not going to see this movie because he heard it was British and he doesn't usually doesn't like movies with subtitles.

Notting Hill
Rated: PG-13
Directed By: Roger Michell
Starring: Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, Rhys Ifans...oh heck, why do I bother? As if you've ever heard of anyone in this film other than Julia and Hugh.