Funny 'Friends with Benefits' let down by surrender to formula

I came to 'Friends With Benefits' with the hope that writer-director Will Gluck would take aim at the romantic comedy with the same piquant, mischievous zeal he displayed in 2010's 'Easy A', a film that earned him comparisons to such hallowed figures as Alexander Payne and John Hughes.

And he does - for a while, at least. The film springs from the gate with a fun revisionist élan, promising to lay waste to the stale conventions that have long characterized the genre. A promise that, in the end, is sadly unfulfilled.