Movie review: 'Fool's Gold' holds no treasure

There are several dazzlingly pretty but profoundly dumb characters in "Fool's Gold," characteristics they share with the film itself. A treasure-hunting comic romance set in the Florida Keys, it's sunshiney enough to correct your midwinter vitamin D deficiency, and very easy on the eyes. But you could find a more intellectually stimulating plot on the Golf Channel. When the lovably daffy Kate Hudson is cast as the story's deepest thinker, expectations must be lowered.

Hudson, a multilingual history scholar, married immature treasure diver Matthew McConaughey after a spring break fling that turned into a passionate but aggravating romance. "You married a guy for sex and you expect him to be smart?" marvels her lawyer at the inevitable divorce hearing. The dauntingly buff McConaughey, looking as though he drinks a brew of Bovine Growth Hormone and Hawaiian Tropic, wants her back.

The prospect of locating a sunken Spanish treasure boat reunites them. Think "National Treasure," but with more romantic bickering and less clothing. The upshot is often silly, rarely funny.

Hudson works aboard the yacht of a megamillionaire (Donald Sutherland), whose riches have been unable to buy him a convincing upper-class English accent. His featherbrained daughter Alexis Dzenia, who may as well have "romantic rival" stenciled on her forehead, gets the best of the script's slim pickings with such lines as, "The oceans are all connected, right?" For no convincing reason, Sutherland sponsors the treasure hunt, and they race against comic-violent rap mogul Kevin Hart, who wants the loot and also wants them dead.

The script repeatedly assures us that McConaughey is a tiger in the sack. Maybe this is the pasty, envious middle-aged guy in me talking, but somebody who works out as much as McConaughey probably writes love notes to his mirror. In any event, there's no electricity in his scenes with Hudson, nor even a sense that this is a welcome reunion after 2003's "How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days." Portraying an emotional iceberg slowly melting under McConaughey's doofus charm, she's unpersuasive. The characters lack warmth, and the actors deliver detached paycheck performances.

Director Andy Tennant ("Hitch," "Sweet Home Alabama") allows the subplot-heavy story to run on for nearly two hours, which is more than formulaic romantic comedy can bear. We know that market researchers insist that these films be predictable, but can't they be predictable in an unpredictable way?

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186