The Sex Monster has enough halfway funny moments to make it watchable, and it takes itself so lightly that it's hard to take any real offense at how moronic its humor is, how predictable it is or how very utterly it fails at understanding human (especially female) behavior and portraying human relationship with any manner of realism. It's silly and farcical enough that it can get away with all that, but the fact is it just doesn't work. It's not funny enough; it's not perceptive enough to stand as a relationship comedy, it's unwatchable for women, and as for the horny men who might expect to enjoy it, they will be disappointed by the complete lack of nudity or sex scenes or, even, any feeling of sensuality - there is absolutely no sexual tension to be found. Mariel Hemingway (to me, forever Manhattan's charming young Tracy) does well with whatever material she gets, as sweet and charismatic as ever, but she can't help the script make her character feel like a real person, and she can't make the lesbian scenes work; on the other hand, writer/director Mike Binder cast himself as the entirely unlikable protagonist, through whose eyes we see the entire film, and he's so whiny and self-absorbed that he's absolutely impossible to relate to, nor does he go through any sort of development throughout the film. Binder would have better luck as director in the following decade, but The Sex Monster is completely skippable.
Review of The Sex Monster
