Review: 'Fool's Gold' Bronze At Best

'Fool's Gold' (PG-13)(out of four)

What happened to the days when treasure hunting was fun?

Forget all talk of believability. Any criticism of the script or the characters. I was excited to see "Fool's Gold" for no other reason than, after all the despair of "There Will Be Blood," all the blood of "No Country For Old Men."

"Fool's Gold" was a movie that promised little more than some fun in the sun -- maybe a twist of romance and adventure as our heroes uncovered lost gold from centuries past.

Yet somehow "Fool's Gold" seems oblivious to the superficial joy within easy reach. When all we want are some laughs and some chemistry, why does the movie make uber-hunk Matthew McConaughey and uber-babe Kate Hudson do so much frowning and fretting? Doesn't director Andy Tennant ("Hitch") realize that he could have just had the two simply walk the beach for 90 minutes in swimsuits carrying metal detectors, stealing a few kisses and sharing a few jokes, and he would have sent away all those Valentine's Day couples smiling ear to ear?

Instead, I can only imagine the eyes rolling -- male and female alike -- as "Fool's Gold" spins its gears faster and faster. The treasure hunters are Finn (McConaughey) and Tess (Hudson), two once-lovers who share the screen for the first time during a divorce proceeding. He can't figure out what he did wrong, and she's having a hard time understanding what -- besides his physique and sex drive -- she ever found attractive. But, alas, Finn's just made a crucial discovery in their hunt for a sunken Spanish treasure, and try as she might, Tess can't walk away from her life's obsession.

Now, this alone sounds like a fun little movie. But underneath this foolproof story of lovers and treasure is a thicket of subplots and complications. Finn owes money to a gun-wielding gangster, for starters, and since he accidentally sank his boat, all of his hopes come to ride on the kindness of Nigel (Donald Sutherland), the philanthropic owner of the luxury boat on which Tess now works as a stewardess. Another aside: Nigel's the father of a ditzy celebrity daughter (Alexis Dzenia) -- a slipper-wearing princess who clearly doesn't have any IQ points to spare.

Ah, but wait, we're not done. There's Finn's Ukrainian sidekick and his arch-nemesis who threatens to discover this sunken treasure before he does. There's even the scene where, for some three minutes, Finn and Tess go into a tizzy, explaining the complex history of this treasure to a bewildered Nigel. Rather than go out and explore, here we are, cooped up in a stateroom, trying to make sense of an incoherent bit of history that we never wanted to hear in the first place.

We want more "Blue Crush," less "The Da Vinci Code."

Late in the movie, there are indeed two minutes that hint at what might have been. Racing across the ocean, Finn makes a death-defying leap from racing jet ski to accelerating airplane, and I must admit, it's one of the best, seemingly non-CG stunts I've seen on screen in a long time.

And it's when Finn and Tess -- who only kiss perhaps two or three times in the entire film -- find themselves piloting that same airplane that Hudson inadvertently hints at the fun that has been all but strained out of this movie.

It's a ray of sunshine -- this unexpected bit of silliness that is barely captured at the edge of the frame. So why couldn't the rest of "Fool's Gold" have been a little more foolish, spent a little more time on the beach -- taken itself a little less seriously?