When Pam can't sit through a Meg Ryan romantic comedy I know something is wrong; it tells me something that she had to tell me that the old man and Meg have switched souls. Is that really how old men act? Since we only met the character for an instant, we don't know, but he sure is more interesting than Alec and Meg. For that matter, her parents should have had more screen time. Yes, I realize the plot did not call for that, but they were funny. Meg and Alec weren't, and then again maybe I am missing the point: maybe they're not supposed to be funny.From the moment Alec began doing voice-overs, I knew we were in for a long night. If the acting doesn't explain what is going on, and if exposition would run the film too long, then something is wrong with the story.There is another basic problem: Meg, for all her charm and spunk....I hear Lou Grant saying 'I hate spunk'....cannot convince me that she is the ditz of a bartender in the first part. The role was created 15-20 years too late and needs someone like the young Goldie Hawn, a more physical actress.To summarise, BIG is better.

Not much to recommend about this mild, laughless romantic-comedy. Baldwin and Ryan are newly wed when an old man asks to kiss the bride. Somehow, Meg Ryan and the old man exchange souls, and we have another body-swapping mix-up in the vein of BIG, VICE VERSA, 13 GOING ON 30, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, 18 AGAIN, etc, etc... only PRELUDE TO A KISS never aspires to anything madcap or screwball, like each of those other films. Furthermore, it's not especially insightful or well-written. So the body-swap twist never amounts to much, plot-wise. We never get BIG laughs, or even 18 AGAIN laughs, for that matter. By the end of the film, I would have settled for a few VICE VERSA size chuckles. Ho-hum...

I tried to watch this, I really did. I mean, Meg is adorable and Alec has nice hair on his chest. But I just couldn't get interested. I mean, Meg is cute and kinky (kinky in a nice way of course) and she sincerely worries about bringing children into this troubled world, and Alec's character has had a troubled youth. So their characters have depth, I'm sure. And he meets her parents and gets warm with her mom and watches dear old dad's embarrassing antics with his dog tattoos, and they drink beer out of the bottle and you know it's going to be true love and all that.But somehow I didn't feel any chemistry between them. I mean how would Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play this? (Would they play it?) How about Tony Randall and Jack Klugman? What the hey, how about Abbott and Costello? And then I saw the old guy who was going to kiss her (I knew the premise) and I didn't want to see THAT. He (Sydney Walker) gets on a train at random and goes to a random destination and is fated to arrive at their wedding at exactly the right time, etc.Anyway, after a while I figured it was probably just me. After all, this is Meg Ryan who is adorable and can still play ingenue types at forty-something (she was only 31 when this was released), not to mention that this is adapted from a hit Broadway show of the same name from playwright Craig Lucas. And I guess I should add that Kathy Bates, who is a fine, fine, underrated actress (how I loved her in the film version of Stephen King's Misery 1990, boy wasn't she a nasty), is going to have a part. (Turned out to be a small part.) But still, let's face it, I'm just not the right guy to fully appreciate such a film.But then, recalling that I am an intrepid reviewer and realizing I have an obligation to my public who need to see cutesy movies trashed--that, and noticing that today's rerun of Seinfeld is one I've seen three times--I flicked the VCR back on and tried to watch with my eyes closed. That didn't work, so I tried it with the sound off. I thought it might be interesting to try and guess what they were doing by just watching. (You can observe a whole lot by just watching, I've been told. In fact, Yogi told me that.) Then I decided I better turn the sound back on because I knew that this kiss by an old man is going to turn the bride into somebody with the mind of the old man or something like that, and I had better catch what's going on.Okay I'm still hanging in there and this is actually getting good. No, I mean it. Meg is now an old man (in her soul) and they're in Jamaica and she's dressing old man weird and loving life and Alec is wondering what happened to the woman he married.I won't say any more except that Meg handles her new persona rather well, and Alec is very professional. Still I have to warn you that it gets syrupy at the end and there's a deep layer of what it means to be in love with someone over and above their sexuality--and that's good. However what really bothered me about this movie was that Meg Ryan was too skinny. She needs to quit stressing and relax a little, have some chocolate mousse and realize it's okay to be thirty-something then and forty-something now.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Bespectacled Alec Baldwin meets sexy but eccentric Meg Ryan at a party and falls in love with her. Who wouldn't? Everything goes well until they get married and then... but that would be telling. Let's just say this is one of the daftest films you could ever hope to see, in terms of an unbelievable storyline.Still there are some nice moments and Meg Ryan is fabulous as always.