There have been rumblings going around Hollywood lately that the rom-com genre is dead. Superheroes and action movies are seemingly the only genres that studios are willing to bet on. And while that may or may not be the case, a middling plot doesn’t help “Anyone but You” stand out.

Columbia Pictures’ “Anyone but You,” which was released in theaters on Dec. 22, 2023, follows Goldman Sachs employee, Ben (played by “Top Gun: Maverick” star Glen Powell) and law student Bea (Sydney Sweeney).

After their first date turns sour, Ben and Bea are forced to spend more time together when Bea’s sister, Halle (“Moxie” star Hadley Robinson), begins dating Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), the sister of Ben’s childhood friend, Pete (Davionte Ganter).

Here’s where the story of the Will Gluck-directed film starts to get predictable. Some of the most successful rom-coms of the 21st century have woven in elements of other genres, such as adventure (“The Lost City”), fantasy (“13 Going on 30”) or satire (Gluck’s own “Easy A”).

“Anyone but You” doesn’t have any of that. Much like “Easy A” was based on “The Scarlet Letter,” the premise of “Anyone but You” is taken from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” After an outburst at Halle and Claudia’s engagement party in Australia, Ben and Bea decide to fake being in a relationship in order not to ruin their wedding. It’s not hard to predict what happens next.

I’m not the biggest fan of the fake-dating trope, but it works better when there’s actual chemistry involved. Ben and Bea get together because the plot requires it, but the characters should be driving the story, not the plot.

It’s no fault of the stars, either. The cast is actually decent. If you’ve seen “Maverick,” you know that Powell has charisma. I actually thought Sweeney was more charismatic in this movie.

The problem is the script doesn’t give them anything to play with. Ben’s character is very inconsistent; he’s a womanizer, but also not, and he makes jokes about Bea but also vaguely feels bad about them later. Meanwhile, Bea doesn’t seem to have any aspirations; a subplot about her quitting law school feels shoehorned in.

Ben and Bea aren’t the only ones scheming here either. The rest of the family are all involved in their scheme to get the two of them together. Some of my biggest laughs of the film came from Pete and his father, Roger, bumbling through very fake conversations designed to be overheard.

When the family’s scheme fails, Halle and Claudia devise one last scheme of their own. With this one, the two don’t even try to make their argument believable, but Ben and Bea believe it because they need to so that the movie’s plot can happen.

I thought many of the movie’s best moments were in the opening scene. Ben and Bea have some good banter, and Sweeney proves to be quite good at physical comedy. It’s too bad that the rest of the movie squanders that for a mediocre, tropey script, with one exception when Ben sees a spider on Bea’s back and subsequently removes all of his clothes.

Pete also has some good jokes sprinkled throughout the movie, as does Leo (Dermot Mulroney), Bea’s father. I also appreciated how they used Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” as Ben’s “serenity song,” or comfort song. It made him seem more human, instead of just the womanizer that he so desperately wants to be.

So, is the rom-com dead? Maybe not, as “Anyone but You” actually was very successful at the box office, making $128 million on a $25 million budget. If other genres are any indication, Hollywood is going to make a lot more rom-coms now. I just hope they have better scripts.