D-

What can you say about a movie that ends with that hoariest of romantic cliches–the long-delayed kiss between the leads on a crowded airplane that makes the other passengers break out in spontaneous applause as a prompt to the theatre audience? Or one in which we’re treated repeatedly to shots of a skate-boarding bulldog, whom we’re meant to consider just darling? Or one that offers us, just before the nick-of-time reunion finale, a musical montage which collects, while one of the characters sings a dreadful title tune, a pile of lowlights from earlier portions of the picture. Perhaps a slight alteration in one of the lyrics written by Luke Falcon, the supposedly studly guy at the center of the plot, would be appropriate. The line is “You’re smart, but in a stupid way.” You might say that “Undiscovered” is stupid, but in a stupid way.

In the hilariously lame script penned by John Galt, Falcon, played by ponytailed pretty-boy Steven Strait, has a cute subway encounter with blonde model Brier Tucket (Pell James) on the very day he’s leaving New York to try his luck in L.A. Two years later Brier explains to her powerful agent Carrie (Carrie Fisher) that she wants to go to California to try her hand at acting, and damned if the first bar she goes into with her new L.A. acting class buddy, grungy singer-actress Clea (Ashlee Simpson), doesn’t happen to be the joint where Luke, still undiscovered, is holding forth with his band. With Clea’s selfless encouragement (and that of Luke’s brother Euan, played by Kip Pardue, who shows up as the lead singer in a funk group), Brier and Luke are drawn to one another, though the girl is deterred by the fact that she still yearns for her former boyfriend, an over-the-hill Brit rocker (Stephen Moyer) whom Carrie detests. The greater complication comes up, however, when Brier, Clea and Carrie use Josie, a sexpot actress (Shannon Sossamon), and some of their fellow tyro actors to stir up a public frenzy over Luke and get him a record contract with sleazy promoter Garrett Schweck (Fisher Stevens). You can see where all this is headed: Luke will be overcome by the attention, from fans as well as Josie (even though at one point he insists, “I’m not a rock star, I’m a musician!”–a statement that would compel agreement only if a “not” were inserted in the second clause, too); his incipient career will flounder when Garrett discovers how he was tricked into signing him on; and that revelation will poison the relationship with Brier which is only just beginning to take root. Not to worry, though. Carrie, working as an omnipotent fairy godmother, will set things right, with the help not only of the ever-supportive Clea but also of Wick Treadway (Peter Weller), a legendary music maverick who shows up in the last act to serve as sort of a deus ex hack-ina. Then there come that awful montage while Clea sings and the final applause-inducing smack.

We’ve seen this sort of story many times before, but rarely told in as slovenly a fashion as here. Under Meiert Avis’ clueless direction, James and Strait smile and make doe-eyes at one another a lot, but never get past amateur-hour status. Pardue and Sossamon should have been reined in more than a little, while the two Fishers, Carrie and Stevens, and especially the goofy Weller, seem to be seeing how low they can slum. As for Simpson, perhaps movies, where dubbing is allowed, is more suited to her than stage performance, but her screen presence is pretty much nil. From the technical perspective the picture looks dull and washed-out, especially in interior scenes. And the music is, to be charitable, mediocre.

Just about the quality of a busted WB Network pilot, “Undiscovered” certainly deserves to remain that way.

D

One of the motifs in the Belgian import “Steve + Sky” is that the male half of the titular duo is often shown running frantically in circles and getting nowhere. In that he seems to be emulating the whole movie. Technically this is a romance, I suppose; Steve (Titus De Voogdt), a scrawny ex-con with a clownlike mop of frizzy hair, and Sky (Delfine Bafort), a lanky blonde hooker, do eventually get together. But the route they travel along the way–littered with arguments, abandonment and violence as well as moments of lust and passion (and others of slacker boredom)–is not a happy one to traverse. Writer-director Felix van Groeningen (along with editor Nico Leunen) make it even bumpier than necessary by pointlessly cutting in footage from earlier and later in the story, foreshadowings and reminiscences one supposes; but the effect is just to make the picture needlessly choppy and chaotic. Of course, even without that bad choice it would be a difficult movie to like.

We’re first introduced to the pair separately. He’s a spindly drug-runner who’s sent to jail for selling Ecstasy. There he becomes pals with gruff, wheelchair-bound Jean-Claude (Johan Heldenburgh). Meanwhile Sky, who’s turning tricks to support her addict boyfriend, is beaten by the bum when he finds out what’s she’s been doing, so she goes off on her own. The two meet up at a men’s club Jean-Claude’s set up after his release: Steve becomes a partner in the place (he and the boss sometimes go off together to steal motorcycles) and Sky a dancer there. The two are attracted to each other, but Steve isn’t ready to commit, and they go through spasms of alternating lovemaking and recrimination. Steve, of course, runs around in those circles; he also races his motorcycle down curiously empty streets on occasion late at night. As for Sky, she has a tendency to fake epileptic fits as a joke and also dances through intersections rather than walking if she doesn’t reach them before the light changes. As you can see, they’re very deep souls, particularly as played by the befuddled De Voogdt and the blankly inexpressive Bafort. (The earthy Heldenburgh is more enlivening, but only marginally, and a fourth character–his daughter, played by Romy Bollion, is an obnoxious little twerp.) The movie looks dreadful, too–grainy, dark and unattractive.

So thinness is the stuff of the whole picture (not just of its male lead). “Steve + Sky” is a tedious movie about very unpleasant people. It definitely deserves a minus rather than the affected titular plus sign.