Every so often I encounter a film that can only be described by one word: excremental. Just Married is the latest film to have earned that honour, but there is room for merriment for it shall likely not be the last. This 2003 Ashton Kutcher vehicle was running on the music video channel because that’s what all music video channels do these days — they play bad movies aimed at the pre-teen to teen demographic.

Just Married, directed by Shawn Levy, ties perfectly into that precious demographic and captivates the doe-eyed individuals with Kutcher’s sycophantic looks and senseless countenance. Somehow Mr. Kutcher has become a star among this group of ignorant young people and Just Married aims to exploit this capitulation of good sense for about 90 minutes.

It’s no wonder that Just Married trotted its idiotic wares out to audiences in January of 2003, for that’s usually the time that film studios dump their dead weight. This year is no exception, of course. Behold Jessica Alba’s The Eye or Fool’s Gold or Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins or Meet the Spartans or 27 Dresses. I think you get my drift. So it stands to reason that the Mensa members at Twentieth Century Fox should drop this one on audiences in January and that it should live on in syndication hell on MTV and other similar “kiddie” networks for years to come. The sadomasochist in me, then, decided watching this one would be a good idea.

Kutcher stars as Tom Leezak, a brainless and witless young man with rage issues that are emphasized with humorous glee. Consider him a sort of Adam Sandler lite. Leezak and Sarah McNerny (Brittany Murphy) are coming back from their honeymoon in Europe and are verbally abusing one another. Obviously the relationship is in shambles and we are about to find out why (yippee!).

Leezak generates a flashback and we’re off to the meeting of the couple, the wedding, and the honeymoon. The film traipses its audience around Europe as our loving couple dotingly look into one another’s eyes and try to have a good time. Of course, we’re to believe that all manner of catastrophe keeps on befalling the poor couple, but the reality is that there is much more to this chaos than meets the eye.

Leezak fortuitously killed Sarah’s dog and Sarah fortuitously slept with Peter Prentiss (Christian Kane). Of course, like any good couple in Hollywood films about love and marriage, they don’t tell each other any part of this and merely get married. With the foundation of dishonesty firmly undamaged, it’s off on the honeymoon where Sarah and Tom personify every ferocious and dim-witted stereotype of an American overseas as can be imagined. Their obnoxiousness is played up as comic relief and their tastelessness towards each other and those that happen to be in this train wreck of a film is supposed to be raucously hilarious.