McDreamy's go-to guy for this rom-com

Bill Clinton - he's blowin' in the zeitgeist.

Made of Honor

is the second romantic comedy this year to use the Clinton presidency as a plot point, and the Commander in Chief's infamous dalliance with a woman named Monica. First, it was Ryan Reynolds as an idealistic campaign worker in

Definitely, Maybe

, and now, it's Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan meeting cute on a college campus.

It's Halloween 1998, and he, Tom, is on the prowl in a Clinton mask. She, Hannah, is asleep in her dorm, but he thinks she's somebody else, waiting beneath the sheets for the pants-dropping prez.

Yelps of horror and blurts of embarrassment ensue, and then so does a deep - and platonic - friendship between the serial cad and the pretty fine arts major.

Flash forward 10 years, and Hannah's restoring Renaissance paintings at the Metropolitan Museum and Tom's a Manhattan millionaire - he invented the "coffee collar," the piece of cardboard that slips around a to-go cup. He gets a dime for every Starbucks cup sold. (And Starbucks gets prominent product placement.)

Best friends Hannah and Tom meet every Sunday for dim sum, and call each other day and night to talk about events big and small. But Tom, like his oft-divorced father (Sydney Pollack), can't keep his hands off the ladies. He has systems of seduction, rules of engagement. He'd be a commitment-phobe if he knew what commitment meant, but he has no idea.

And then Hannah heads to Scotland for work, and Tom finds his life strangely empty. You've seen it in the trailer: There he is playing basketball with his buds, confessing, "It's got me thinking. There's more to life than just sleeping around."

Made Of Honor is My Best Friend's Wedding by way of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Directed by the Brit Paul Weiland (City Slickers II) and scripted in part by Philadelphia's rom-com power couple, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, Made of Honor finds Dr. McDreamy realizing that he's in love with Monaghan's smart, sassy Hannah, and then doing everything he can to "destroy the wedding from within."

There are gay jokes. There is snappy discourse about dresses, crockery, nuptial etiquette. And then there is the grand wedding in Scotland, in the old castle on the loch belonging to Colin McMurray (Kevin McKidd), heir to a whiskey fortune and a guy who's big, strong, redheaded and wears a kilt. Is Hannah really going to marry this guy?

Of course not.

Made of Honor is the kind of formulaic fare - there's even that turn-the-car-around-and-get-me-back-to-the-church moment - that depends on the wit of the script and the spark of its stars. In those departments, the film is just middling. A clever line here and there, a debonair Dempsey wink, a cute Monaghan nod, and another Bill and Monica reference to tie things all together.

Directed by Paul Weiland. With Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd and Sydney Pollack. Distributed by Sony Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 41 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (sex, profanity, adult themes)

Playing at: area theatersEndText