You may have heard there was a howl raised by several Catholic organizations over the release of this movie. If not, I’ll give you the short version - a young guy vows to give up all forms of sex for Lent. He’s also got an older brother entering the priesthood who is on the verge of realizing sex is too important to give up forever.

I’m not sure how many people give up sex for Lent, but I’m sure there have been men who decide they can’t handle celibecy and opt out of the robes. So why can’t we have one character in one movie who does that? That’s what I can’t stand about these protests. If they decide one character in one movie depicts what they stand for negatively, the calls begin and the protest is underway. It doesn’t matter if that character represents something that could happen or did happen, the objectors refuse to sit down.

That having been said, those who object to this movie have nothing to worry about. It’s a stinker. Talk about not funny - Josh Hartnett plays the guy whose just lost his long time girl and can’t get her out of his mind. To solve that problem, he takes the Lenten vow. That includes self stimulation, in case you were wondering. Are you doubled over laughing yet?

Of course, he meets his real dream girl shortly after the “fast” begins. That I don’t mind because she is actually truly the only watchable character in this movie. Everybody else is a bad cartoon caricature. See if you find this funny - Josh’s problems begin when he keeps getting distracted during sex by the ceiling overhead ripping apart. Yes, he’s imagining this. So why not get on top so you can’t see the ceiling? Well, he tries this but the agressive girl he’s with tosses him back on his back. This is followed by Josh’s faking an orgasm and then looking to fill the condom with white-out to fool the girl into thinking he finished the job. Oh, and as he tries to do that, he does the old zany “banana peel” slip and fall routine. Do you have your money out of your wallet yet to pay for this?

In fact, I’d like to go through every last unfunny thing that happens in this movie because I’d definitely like to save you a few bucks. But then that would be the whole movie so here’s some more- Josh works in a dot com office in San Francisco, and since they have nothing to do these days, they start an online betting pool as to when Josh will give in. So this results in many of them having some dopey scheme to get Josh to “liberate his fluids”. That would , of course, include Viagra. It’s not funny, trust me.

I actually believe I just made it all funnier than it is. This movie is brought to you by the makers of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Notting Hill”. Those movies are comedy classics compared to this bomb. And that is an old trick by the way. They try to sucker you in by naming a couple of movies you may fondly remember before word of mouth does in the piece of junk they’re foisting on you. You’ve been warned. The protesting Catholics are right - don’t see this movie. Oh, and the brother who is on his way to becoming a priest but drops out after he gives into his need for sex? -not funny either.

There are plenty of ways you can make a movie about someone giving up sex for “40 Days And 40 Nights” and make it mildly entertaining. But this isn’t one of them. They tried to make the guys laugh with the sex stuff and the girls enjoy the romance part, but both are terrible. I give it a “2.0″ on the scale - an early nominee for one of the year’s worst.