RE: "I agree about the holier than thou brigade but there is just no way I could bring myself to watch a Julia Roberts movie, even if Natalie Portman is in it."
That's the single most reasonable criticism of the movie I've seen so far on this thread. Yeah, I never thought Julia Roberts was much of an actress (or a looker either). She always seems to be playing the same character in each of her movies, and that character is unusually dour and joyless considering the ammount of close-ups she gets for her famous smile.
Natalie is a far more effective actress (and far more beautiful, of course).