Since the success of Meet The Parents, studio chiefs have been desperate to put Ben Stiller into a similar role, where he plays an average kind of guy who finds that crazy things happen to him. Faced with calamities, he displays exasperation, embarrassment, frustration and the whole gamut of emotional responses, depending on what he encounters. It comes from the One Foot In The Grave school of comedy, except there's an obvious age difference between Victor Meldrew and the characters Stiller plays. Done well, opposite performers of Robert De Niro's calibre, it works, but done only half well, you get films like Along Came Polly. Interestingly, the writer/director is John Hamburg, who was responsible for Meet The Parents's screenplay. The studio chiefs must have booked him early, hoping for more of the same.

It starts well. Stiller plays Reuben Feffer, a straight-laced risk assessor on honeymoon, who finds that his new wife takes a shine to the first beefcake she meets - disaster for Reuben. Back in the city, he goes to a party with his former best man (Philip Seymour Hoffman, typically over-the-top) and bumps into an old schoolmate Polly (Jennifer Aniston), who's a waitress. They're poles apart, as far as personality goes - she's bohemian, he's play-it-safe - so romance isn't going to be a bed of roses, but perhaps ... people can change. At this point, Reuben's wife returns, hoping for reconciliation, and, suddenly, he has two women on his hands.

Along Came Polly will appeal to a mixed crowd of rom-com mainstreamers. Stiller does his best with what is there, which is not enough, and the film leaves you expecting more. Hoffman hams it up in style and Aniston is OK, but, in the end, you're left thinking ... could have been better. A lot better.