<I>America's Sweethearts</I> is just the kind of romantic froth that makes for pleasant viewing on a lazy, rainy day. While Julia Roberts, John Cusack, and Catherine Zeta-Jones offer high-wattage marquee value, costar and cowriter Billy Crystal reworks <I>Singin' in the Rain</I> for latter-day Hollywood, where estranged superstars Gwen (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (Cusack) reluctantly promote their latest movie by pretending their messily disputed relationship is still going strong. The studio chief (Stanley Tucci) is desperate for a hit, so he hires a seasoned publicist (Crystal) to orchestrate a press junket that will cast everyone in a profitable light. The catch: The director (Christopher Walken) has abducted his own film in an act of artistic extortion, and Gwen's sister and longtime assistant Kiki (Roberts) is the true object of Eddie's desire.<p> Chaos ensues at the luxury hotel where the junket is scheduled, and <I>America's Sweethearts</I> pokes easy fun at the cynical machinery that keeps Hollywood running. Quotable quips are delivered in abundance, and while Zeta-Jones is readily convincing as a bitchy narcissist, Roberts effortlessly steals the show with her trademark charms. All of which makes <I>America's Sweethearts</I> lightly entertaining, even though it never rises (like Roberts's earlier <I>Notting Hill</I>) to the level of classic romantic comedy, hampered by a script that too often substitutes easy laughs for ripe satirical invention, flashing a phony grin when it should be baring its fangs. <I>--Jeff Shannon</I>

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Price: $9.95 Updated on 5-25-2009.