WORTH 12 BUCKS?: Friends With Benefits (REVIEW)

After starring in the most talked about sex scene in the award-winning and wickedly fun film Black Swan, Mila Kunis' lead role in the movie Friends with Benefits seemed dangerously exciting. But then again, expect to be surprised.

In fact,  Loquacious Friends with Benefits or even Chatter between the Sheets are more accurate titles for a romantic comedy, that its almost a race between two competing activities: sex and talk. I am still not sure, but I think talk won.

Kunis is Jamie, an adorable and effective corporate headhunter who perhaps has found her match in Dylan (Justin Timberlake) the latest professional recruit who happens to be a hip art director from California. After a whirlwind tour of NYC that concludes with a flash mob in Times Square, Dylan decides to accept the job offer and the two begin a friendship. Before long (can you blame them?) these kids, who are both coming off relationships, decide they can have their cake and eat it too.

Are we friends?  Yes. Are we young and beautiful? Definitely. Are we horny?  For sure. Should we have sex with no strings attached? Yeah, but wait ... isn't this the name of another recent movie on a similar topic? Indeed ... and if only those two leads (as in Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher) had had half the chemistry that Kunis and Timberlake have, then THAT movie may have had a chance.

When you have a romantic comedy about sex, we need to believe the two people having the sex actually like each other. And Kunis and Timberlake are more than believable. She is the Hepburn to his Tracy, the Bacall to his Bogart, the Laurel to his Hardy. Their chemistry is that good. Yet, strangely, the sex scenes are just not that sexy. Maybe they should have been stars back in the days when stars never had sex. In fact, Kunis and Timberlake seem much more sexual and sexy when they chat at a rapid fire clip while walking down the street, than when they are giving each other specific instructions of what to do between the sheets.