AT THE MOVIES - Predictable 'Proposal' is another 'cute' romantic comedy

** 1/2 'The Proposal'

Since the majority of big budget romantic comedies rely on their ability to coerce their largely female audience into proclaiming that a given film within the genre is "cute" just as action flicks hope to be "awesome" to their male-demo, one can't unconditionally fault a rom-com for not adhering to a predictable set of parameters.

You'd find more success in filling a bevy of canteens from a pile of stones than to expect and derive mind-blowing originality from a movie just hoping to generate a simple "aw" along with a girlish guffaw from its unaffected audience.

Aphorisms aside, anyone going into "The Proposal," the Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds rom-com made for women and by the same woman who brought us the "cute" Katherine Heigl vehicle "27 Dresses," with expectations soaring above what is already communicated in the trailer, should take a moment to peruse Ryan Reynolds' Nilla wafer-coated filmography.

It's Ryan Reynolds in the lead, not John Malkovich, the Academy is moving on.

Yes, "The Proposal" meets its cute quota; no, you shouldn't prepare yourself for artful intensity and a script laden with adverbs, and God help you if you don't already know that the second you buy a ticket.

So here we are, with Sandra Bullock playing Margaret (not Maggie, because she is a Serious Business Person), a somber suited book editor with an office full of player haters. Her intrepid assistant Andrew (Reynolds), is dutiful, if not also a believer that Margaret may be just another Devil wearing Prada.

Upon learning that her visa is expired and she is set to be deported back to her native homeland Canada, Margaret proposes marriage to Andrew, threatening him with the prospect of unemployment should she leave the country.

In order to make their union more believable, Margaret flies with Andrew to his family's home in Alaska to attend his grandmother's 90th birthday celebration. As the trailer insinuates, the two may actually find love with one another after smooching, literally running into each other naked, and spending a lot of time with the little old birthday lady (Betty White, with more lines of dialogue than you'd expect).

Reynolds waxes his way through sarcasm as he usually does, and Bullock has the same comedic timing and delivery as the stammer-happy Jennifer Aniston. The couple manages to marry their actorly sense of comedy and they make it work for the good of their own chemistry and for audiences; as they read their lines with a sense of industriousness not deflated by a paper-thin plot.

I would have liked to see a stronger comedic supporting cast, as Betty White can only exhaust the Old Lady Says Crazy Things bit for so long, and Craig T. Nelson playing Andrew's father seems like he's on the verge of suicide (really, Nelson was more upbeat in "Poltergeist"). "The Office's" Oscar Nunez does a good job at stealing the show a few times, but it makes me wonder if stars of the NBC sitcom have a contractual obligation to appear in at least one 2009 big-screen comedy a-piece.

With a play-on-words title, an elderly woman, a fluffy puppy, and a build-up and release of sentiment, there's no questioning the cute-pandering; even if you're not susceptible, you're still aware.

The romance is nuked and warm enough to digest, the comedy satiable, and the elements are in place as they should be. It is what it is, and it's okay, even if the film's self-awareness is as explicit as anything starring two other yuppies with a penchant for picking scripts that just write themselves.

- Now playing at CinemaWorld, Lincoln, 622 George Washington Highway, 401-333-8676, cinemaworldonline.com.