SINGAPORE - Matthew McConaughey is Connor Mead, your typical booty-chasing, girlfriend-stringing, commitment-phobic bachelor, except multiplied to all-consuming proportions, of course. Think Barney from "How I Met Your Mother", but not nearly as funny and with a much more fake-tan orange.

During the weekend of his brother's wedding, he encounters the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future to show Connor the error of his womanising ways - and help him realise that he really wants to settle down and play house with his childhood sweetheart, Jennifer Garner.

Yes, McConaughey has starred in many disastrously bad romantic comedies. But this - surprise, surprise - is not one of them. This is a cleverer-than-usual movie that sets out to take all those cheesy, predictable, standard rom-com elements and self-consciously turns them on their heads, while still managing to give everybody a happy ending.

And all the scenes involving Michael Douglas as the ghost of Uncle Wayne, the man responsible for making Connor into the womaniser he is, are hilarious.

This movie is proof that Charles Dickens is relevant to every age - and that A Christmas Carol can be adapted to teach any lesson. The Singapore Government could even use this movie as part of its pro-family campaign. - TODAY/fa