Last year's Bridesmaids managed to breathe new life into the flagging rom-com genre. It was a combination of a sassy script and sparkling performances that made it such a success.

Attempting to follow Bridesmaids down the money-making wedding aisle are the pairing of Jason Segel and Emily Blunt.

A year after meeting at a New Year's Eve party, Tom (Segel) has decided that Violet (blunt) is the woman for him and wants to prove it by asking for her hand in marriage. Luckily for him, she accepts.

Although excited by the prospect of spending the rest of their lives together, the pair aren't in any real urgency to get married straight away.

Tom is settled as a chef in a San Francisco restaurant, whilst Violet is an academic in transit. She's waiting to get stuck into some research at a top university. It doesn't happen. Instead she gets an offer to work with Professor Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans). Obviously she's excited. Relieved and excited. And Tom is excited for her too, until he learns where the position is: the culturally devoid state of Michigan.

Still, they figure it will be a year or two max, and then they can both return to San Francisco once again.

Life however, is always keen to throw the odd curveball, and the pair's relationship is severely tested, especially when Violet's research gets extended. They say that love can conquer all, but can it really take on the hardships that living in Michigan can bring?

It's not very often you find a kindred spirit where knitwear is concerned. I can't wait to get her home and knit her a meal.

There's no denying that there's something likeable about Jason Segel; he seems pleasant enough and isn't outwardly offensive in any shape or form. But whoever it is that keeps making him think that he's really good as a leading man in a rom-com needs to be sent away to a very dark place with no way of coming back.

Yes, he was good in the recent Muppet re-boot, but maybe that was simply because he was surrounded by a group who were pretty much on his acting level.

Although he and Blunt make a nice enough couple, they're just not nice enough to want to spend two hours of your life with.

It's not all that funny either; you'd get more laughs from spending five minutes in a greetings card shop. Here's a joke they could have used: what do you call a rom-com with no romance and no comedy? The Five-Year Engagement.

Maybe Segel is working too hard; this is one of four titles he's made in the last couple of years, as well as his commitment to the TV show How I Met Your Mother; he should know by now however, that it's quality not quantity that counts.

And as far is Blunt is concerned, she just doesn't have a great feel for comedy. At times, when the pair are on screen, it's akin to two actors attempting improv and failing miserably. And to make matters worse, due to the absence of laughs, the titular five years feels like they're played out in real time.

This is one failed relationship that no-one would should have to witness.