Screen couples with no sizzle to sell

Harrison Ford and Anne Heche, “Six Days, Seven Nights”
Hollywood is infamous for sending its leading ladies of a certain age out to pasture while pairing graying leading men with the current crop of fresh-faced ingénues. And so we get 56-year-old Ford as a gruff pilot who wins the heart of 29-year-old Heche’s magazine editor when the two crash on a deserted island. At the time, Heche’s then-recently announced love affair with Ellen DeGeneres was blamed for the film’s lack of convincing heterosexual charisma. But now, years later, its failure can be attributed to what really went wrong: it just wasn’t funny. As stranded couples go, Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball in “Cast Away” had more oomph.

Dudley Moore and Mary Tyler Moore, “Six Weeks”
In this little-seen flop starring two actors whose careers were hot at the time (they’d both come off of Oscar-nominated movies), he’s an ambitious politician on the rise; she’s a cosmetics magnate with a terminally ill young daughter. And together, they fill the screen with unintentional laughs. But if the script of this hokey melodrama weren’t enough to torpedo the movie, there’s also the utterly awkward romance between the two Moores. While mouthing their awful dialogue, the two of them seem to be exchanging looks that say “Can you even believe that this script has us falling in love? Try not to giggle, or we’ll have to do the take over again.”

Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones”
In all fairness, the sexiest and most talented actors on Earth would have a hard time making their way through George Lucas’ and Jonathan Hales’ dreadful woo-pitching dialogue. (“I’m haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me.”) But since Christensen radiates all the charm of particle board, his lovey-dovey scenes with Portman (wearing a series of kooky Kabuki outfits) are perhaps the most grating of all the many awful moments in the “Star Wars” prequels.

Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck, “Xanadu”
The Broadway version of this delightfully goofy disco musical has become a hit, and it’s not just nostalgia that’s packing in the audiences; whoever is playing the lead characters on stage can’t help but have more rapport than the stars of the 1980 original. Newton-John is just right as a grounded Muse, but Michael Beck — who had stirred audiences as a violent gang leader in “The Warriors” — seems utterly adrift. If Beck clicks with anyone in the movie, it’s with Gene Kelly, playing a one-time big-band musician. But even though “Xanadu” is a big gay cult movie, it’s not that gay.

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