BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer

As a rule, I try to avoid simplistic labels for films, but Fools Rush In leaves me no choice. It's a date movie, OK?

In it, Matthew Perry plays Alex, a hard-charging construction supervisor sent to Las Vegas to build a nightclub. When he bumps into Isabel (Salma Hayek), a gorgeous photographer who's about to break up with her childhood sweetheart, it's only a few hours before both of their cars are parked in his driveway.

She disappears, then shows up pregnant three months later. They marry impulsively and spend the rest of the movie in a predictable dance of come-close/go-away.

The script by Katherine Reback is packed with cliches -- he's an uptight WASP, she's a fiery Mexican, his parents are snobbish, hers are smothering, his best friend is a tomcat, her brothers are menacing.

There's only so much that the co-stars and director Andy Tennant can do with this cliched story, but they give it a fair shot.

The action is paced like a TV sitcom, which is an exact fit for Mr. Perry's performance. He behaves so much like his popular character from NBC's Friends that I kept expecting Ms. Hayek to call him ''Chandler.''

Ms. Hayek shows off some comic energy along with her fabulous good looks, and the chemistry between the appealing co-stars is credible.

The result is a cute, fluffy movie that makes a superficial pass at genuine human issues and never lets its adorable couple stray into unexpected territory.

If that's not a date movie, I don't know what is.