Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Matthew McConaughey plays a womanizer who gets a big life lesson at his brother’s wedding. His dead playboy uncle (Michael Douglas, looking like Robert Evans) shows up and warns him that his life is on the wrong track. He’s then visited by three ghosts, A Christmas Carol-style, who show him that his philandering ways are leading him to disaster. Jennifer Garner plays “the one who got away”; she has her charms, as does McConaughey, but the film never quite makes it over the hump of mediocrity, and virtually falls apart by the end. The unoriginal premise could be forgivable if the laughs kept coming, but they’re nonexistent after the first hour. It’s too bad, because the stars are likable, and the director, Mark Waters, has made some decent films in the past (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Just Like Heaven, Mean Girls).