For folks like me – dyed-in-the-wool romantic comedy fans – the resurgence of the rom-com has been welcome. After a fallow period where the genre seemed to be settling into a permanent downturn, recent years have seen a significant uptick, thanks largely to the efforts of numerous streaming services that there’s an audience there. It’s been great.

Well … mostly great.

While seeing more rom-coms is generally a good thing, we also have to take into account the fact that quantity does not in fact equal quality. Sure, we’ve gotten some solid entries along the way, but we’ve also gotten plenty that have been not so great, movies that feel like an algorithm doing a paint-by-numbers.

Alas, “Your Place or Mine,” the new offering from Netflix, is more of the latter.

It’s kind of surprising, actually. The pieces seemed to be there – you’ve got a dynamite rom-com central pairing in Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, for one. And sure, the director is making her debut, but Aline Brosh McKenna is a rom-com vet, having penned a number of successful screenplays within the genre. You’d think this would be an easy win.

Instead, we get a film that can’t get out of the way of its own formula, so bound by the beats and tropes that one can’t help but find oneself three or four steps ahead of the protagonists at all times. There is never any doubt, so what stakes there are feel forced and disingenuous. Predictability alone isn’t a dealbreaker, but without top-tier execution, it isn’t going to work. Unfortunately, everything else – while perfectly cromulent – simply doesn’t rise to the level necessary to push this movie out of its chosen rut.

Film’s flawed storytelling offset by vivid aesthetic, ideas

Reese gets rowdy

There are few things more likely to land a celebrity in this space than a wildly overinflated sense of self-importance. The only thing funnier than a famous person saying or doing something stupid is someone saying or doing that something stupid whilst swept up in a maelstrom of delusion and self-involvement.

Booze helps too.

Well-intentioned action-comedy falls short

One of the unfortunate aspects of today's Hollywood is the obsessive need to produce work that appeals to the broadest possible audience. When you try to appeal to everyone, however, you wind up diluting the product. You wind up with a film that still has the stink of excessive focus grouping all over it. It's just too bad when it happens to a movie that should have been better - a movie like 'This Means War.'

It's the latest offering from director McG ('Terminator Salvation') and on paper, it looks like it could strike the ideal balance between rom-com and shoot-em-up.

On paper.