For centuries now, the battle of the sexes has been an endless source of material for film-makers. The 1930’s in particular, saw the likes of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant go head to head with the opposite of sex, with dialogue so sharp, it’s surprising they didn’t cut their tongues on it. As this film firmly proves though, they don’t make them like that anymore.

Abby (Katherine Heigl) is a producer for a local TV news station. All is not well as the station’s ratings aren’t great. Her boss believes he’s found the next big thing in Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler); an over-opinionated presenter of a public access show, who appears to know more about women than any man on the planet.

Sure enough, when he’s given a slot on Abby’s show, the ratings go through the roof. His segment, The Ugly Truth, proves to be unbelievably popular, much to Abby’s disappointment. However, her opinion of Mike changes when he helps her snag the man of her dreams, her dreamy doctor neighbour. But as she soon discovers, having your dream man may not work out in reality.

I know you, don't I? Don't tell me, you played Santa in something, right? Sparta you say? No, I could've sworn it was Santa...

The first thing that grabs you about The Ugly Truth is that it tries hard to be really bold – possibly too hard though. Not only are the characters pretty in your face, so is the language they use. There’s a fine line between being cheeky and crude, but not as far as this film is concerned as it rolls around in the later rather uncomfortably, far too often. Subtlety then, isn’t its strong point.

Neither is originality. It’s an awkward amalgamation of What Women Want, Roxanne (far more so than Cyrano De Bergerac), Kelsey Grammer’s ill-fated Back to You TV show and When Harry Met Sally. In fact, one scene in particular, fancies itself as a bit of a fake orgasm scene beater, with Abby’s character wearing underwear with a built-in vibrating device in a restaurant, only to have its remote control fall into the hands of a quizzical child. The problem is, it’s unbelievably embarrassing for all concerned, which isn’t help by the fact that it’s completely devoid of humour. In fact the only way it could get any worse was if a customer chirped in ‘I’m having what she’s having’.

The two leads are affable enough; particularly with Heigl proving she made the right decision moving from small to large screen. And although Butler pulls off the balancing act between charm and arrogance, his weird hybrid accent of Scottish and American – Scottican? - is often unsettling/borderline disturbing. Needless to say, neither are anywhere near the same quality as a Hepburn or Grant.

The film’s main downfall is that despite trying to do something a little different with the romcom genre in one sense, by being a little bolder (which it sadly gets all wrong), it simply falls into a bubbling pit of outrageous clichés of its own doing, everywhere else. Considering that director Robert Luketic is also responsible for Legally Blonde and Monster-in-Law, this is no real surprise.

With a second half littered with woeful predictability, the film becomes harder to forgive and easier to forget.

The truth is, despite a few cheap laughs, The Ugly Truth isn’t all that.