The House Bunny (12A)

Definitely a hard sell for the boys, The House Bunny (12A) will appeal to chick flick fans far more than those hoping to catch a glimpse of the Scary Movie star in the buff.

Shelly Darlingson (Anna Faris) loves her life at the Playboy Mansion and dreams of one day being bestowed the ‘honour’ of appearing in the racy magazine’s centrefold. Until the morning after her 27th birthday when she is kicked out for being too old (‘that’s 59 in bunny years’).

With very little experience of the world outside of Hugh Hefner’s babe palace, Shelly stumbles into a college fraternity house where she meets a bunch of misfits. Led by Natalie (Superbad’s Emma Stone), the group take Shelly in to learn how to attract boys and be popular (where, during a make up lesson, they are told that ‘the eyes are the nipples of the face’).

But when her bunny ways fail to win over nice guy Oliver (Colin Hanks), Shelly discovers she has a lot to learn from them too.

Faris never seems to get it quite right. She excels on the eye candy side of things, although it does look like she may have had unsightly collagen injections in her lips for the part. But a lot of the gags fall a bit flat and while her ditzy blonde is cute in a Marilyn Monroe kind of way, she steadily grows more annoying and then just plain dumb.

American comedy is evolving with the likes of Tropic Thunder pushing the boundaries of good taste and Will Ferrell and his goofing gang adopting an almost British sense of stupidity.

So director Fred Wolf’s standard ‘setup, punch-line’ and gross-out humour displayed here come across as tired and unoriginal.

The scenes in the Playboy Mansion are quite fun, with Hefner playing himself providing the biggest laughs (he sits in bed moping over Shelly and eating Häagen-Dazs ice-cream like a big girl).

Though the film does seem to poke a lot of fun at the adult entertainment industry, to the point where you would think Hef would be insulted. Stone stands out from the rest, bringing an element of the off-the-cuff style which she seems to have ably lifted from her Superbad co-stars Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill.

Hanks was an obvious choice as the sweet-natured old people’s home volunteer – a role he falls into effortlessly – but the film is beneath him.

One interesting addition to the cast is Rumer Willis, an attractive girl who looks like both her mother Demi Moore and father Bruce Willis in equal measures – she’s certainly one to watch. If you are between the ages of 13 and 14, this film has plenty to offer in terms of crudity, nudity and fart jokes.

But for the rest of us, it is best avoided. The House Bunny is well below average fare and hopefully doesn’t pose a stumbling block for Faris, who can do much better.