I really wanted to avoid “Aeon Flux,” which wasn’t pre-screened for critics and that usually means “P.U.” So, I decided to take in the film “Just Friends,” a romantic comedy set in New Jersey at Christmas.

I didn’t hate it.

In fact, up until the last 15-20 minutes, I was having a pretty good time and laughing quite a bit.

The plot focuses on a fat dork, Chris Brander, who decides to tell his best friend, Jamie Palomino, that he loves her at her high school graduation party in 1995. Things don’t go as planned, he gets mocked and ridiculed, and he leaves town, vowing to “make something of himself and show everybody.” Ten years later, Brander is a high powered music executive for a record label. He is handsome, svelte and also quite the lothario. He hasn’t returned home to New Jersey in 10 years or spoken to is former best friend. While traveling with a self-absorbed pop star, their plane has to make an emergency landing in, you guessed it, New Jersey. Now, Brander is forced to confront his past and his feelings for his former best friend.

“Just Friends” has a good sense of humor and a nice rhythm for much of the film. Ryan Reynolds brings his trademark smirk and snarkiness to his slimmed down Chris Brander, but also does well in the fat suit as the high school aged Chris. Amy Smart is cute as a button as Jamie Palomino but doesn’t bring much else to the role. It’s O.K. because she doesn’t really have to. The one who steals the show though is Anna Faris as Samantha James, an amalgalm of snobby, pretentionous, pop stars. She is delightfully dimwitted and just hilarious in most, if not all, of her scenes. I just wish there were more of them.

The film bogs down towards the end. The audience knows that eventually the friends will get together but the separation and arguments beforehand begin to get tiresome. “Just Friends” clocks in at 96 minutes and yet it still feels long. That ain’t good. Neither is Chris Klein as Dusty Dinkleman, another former classmate that was, and still is, obsessed with Palomino. There are a few chuckles hear and there at the expense of his character but the performance isn’t great.

This is not a movie where you think about the cinematography or the direction or the screenwriting. Instead you just sit back and try to enjoy yourself. I did for the most part.

**1/2

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