One of the best moments in A Life Less Ordinary follows the first passionate kiss between Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor. We actually see a strand of saliva connecting their lips, but they seem so wrapped up in one another that they don’t seem to notice. Now that’s the kind of attention to realism that makes a movie fun. But then how do you explain why director Danny Boyle chose to include the relatively minor detail in a movie characterized by intervening angels and mysterious flashes of magic realism?

Even more curious: why is Ewan McGregor in this movie? Sure, he’s a regular to Boyle/Andrew Macdonald (producer)/John Hodge (writer) films, but that doesn’t mean he has to be in every movie they ever make. “I don’t ever want to not be involved in one of their films,” McGregor told Entertainment Weekly. Maybe he should consider Hitchcock-style cameos instead of always playing the lead.

In Life, McGregor is Robert, a blockhead janitor recently fired from a big-bucks office building. We’re told he’s a dreamer, which loosely translates to a slacker who would rather be writing bad dime novels than buffing floors. So far, the role doesn’t seem like much of a stretch from his parts in the Scottish trio’s other films: he was Renton, the lead junkie in Trainspotting, and he played one of three disoriented Gen-X roommates who have to deal with an inconvenient corpse and a bag full of cash in the devilishly clever ultra-dark comedy Shallow Grave.

But what is a Scottish janitor doing in the American midwest anyway? It seems pretty obvious that he was a casting favorite, and we’ll just have to deal with his presence. . . which might not be all that bad to many female viewers. Offered equal compensation, salivating male audiences will probably be so busy ogling Cameron Diaz that they won’t notice the script, which suffers from a severe identity crisis.

Life actually starts out even pulpier than Pulp Fiction. The film is interchangeably a hip action caper, a funny romance, an offbeat road flick, and a bizarre comedy cliché, but it never succeeds in being more than one of these types at once. Over a blaring soundtrack, we meet Celine (Diaz), who plays a spoiled rich brat old enough that her father is ready to marry her off and push the responsibility over to a nice (wealthy) young man. Flash to Robert, the poor janitor who is being replaced by a robot capable of doing a little more cleaning without all that dreaming. We immediately like Celine, who plays games of William Tell, shooting apples off people’s heads (not even flinching when a stray bullet pierces her boyfriend’s temple instead of the apple). Robert, on the other hand, strikes us as whiny and annoying, but he’ll grow on us as the movie progresses.

Anyway, it seems that Celine’s despicable dad (Ian Holm) owns the company Robert worked for, and she’s in the wrong (of perhaps right) place at the wrong time. Robert bursts into the boss’s office, fires a few shots (it doesn’t matter; apparently cranky old capitalists deserve to be shot), and kidnaps Celine, who is all-too-willing to go along with the plan. It turns out, Celine has been kidnapped before, and she’s more than happy to show Robert the ropes in exchange for her share of the money.

There’s just one catch. You see, a pair of angels have been sent from heaven to see that the pair falls in love. Yes, I said angels. But these two aren’t your typical Raphaelite cherubs. These two are more like rejects from the A-Team: they’re on a mission and authorized to use any force necessary. O’Reilly (Holly Hunter) chews tobacco and sports a southern drawl, while Jackson (Delroy Lindo) looks tough but is a lover at heart. In their determined plan to make the lovebirds recognize their affections, the renegade angels will accept jobs as bounty hunters, pull off Indiana Jones-esque moving-vehicle stunts, and eventually kidnap Celine themselves. But the angles are still an unnecessary element. Hormones alone would surely drive Robert and Celine together if they are left alone long enough.

To its advantage, the film if full of unique, memorable scenes and characters. The gun-toting angels are a riot, even though we can’t ever really justify their being in the film. In one of the movie’s high points, Celine takes over after Robert botches up a series of kidnapper’s demand phone calls. And who could ever hear Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” again and not remember Robert’s karaoke version, transforming from an embarrassed sing-along into a wild, over-the-top pop music dream (er, nightmare)?

On the surface, Life is light, thoughtless entertainment. Boyle et al manage to put a fresh twist on the overused romantic comedy, but there is also something distinctly unoriginal about trying to create a unique film by combining genres. And who really wants to see McGregor and Diaz get together anyway? No offense to Forrest Gump, but they’re probably better off the way I think peas and carrots should be eaten: separate or not at all.

Like From Dusk Til Dawn, which tried to capitalize on one of Tarantino’s old (read: bad) scripts after he hit it big with better movies, Life uses one of Hodge’s early screenplays (written before Trainspotting). The story is clearly not as well-developed as his other, more successful films. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see a movie like this without one of the cast members of Friends. Besides, Hodge’s dark sense of humor is a welcome change from the bittersweet tone of most romantic comedies.