BY TOM SOMACH

“Lucky You,” the new movie about poker that opened last weekend, is a bomb at the box office and a dud in the critics’ eyes.

The film stars Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall and takes place amidst the 2003 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The flick also features cameo appearances by a number of professional poker players.

According to box office figures from Hollywood, the movie did not even finish among the top five grossing movies of the week in North America–it came in tied for sixth.

According to the figures, the top-grossing movie last weekend was “Spider-Man 3,” which amassed $148 million.

Coming in second was “Disturbia,” which earned $5.7 million.

Third was “Fracture” with $3.4 million.

Fourth was “The Invisible,” earning $3.1 million.

Fifth was “Next,” raking in $2.8 million.

Tied for sixth were feature-length cartoon “Meet the Robinsons” and “Lucky You,” which each took in $2.5 million.

While movie-goers pretty much ignored “Lucky You,” movie critics savaged it.

The Associated Press called the motion picture “bland” and “ordinary.”

The New York Post called it “listless,” “painful” and a “flop,” and on a scale of zero to four stars gave it a half a star.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it “dull,” “boring” and a “waste of time and money,” and on a scale of zero to five stars gave it one star.

The Niagara Falls Reporter called the film “lifeless” and said it “falls short.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch was perhaps the most blunt, summing up the movie in one word: “lousy.”

So why isn’t a nation seemingly obsessed with poker similarly obsessed with seeing a poker movie?

After all, ratings for poker on televison have gone through the roof.

The reason may be as simple as this: poker on TV is real, poker in the movies is not.

Televised tournament poker has real drama, real excitement, real suspense.

When TV did a poker drama–remember ESPN’s forgettable series “Full Tilt”–it failed miserably in the ratings.

Likewise, movie poker is scripted, fake and phony–and real poker fans want none of that.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)