Ralph's Movie Reviews: BABY MAMA

Monday, May 12, 2008

BABY MAMA

Comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Tina Fey: 37-year-old Kate Holbrook, a VP with an organic foods company
Sigourney Weaver: agency owner Chaffee Bicknell
Amy Poehler: a high-school dropout Angie Ostrowiski
Dax Shepard: her boyfriend (or common-law husband?) Carl
Romany Malco: Oscar, doorman at Kate’s luxury apartment
Steve Martin: Barry, the founder of Round Earth and Kate’s boss
Greg Kinnear: Rob, owner of a blended juice cafe

REVIEW
It’s not much of a comedy when the best lines are ones delivered by a doorman. Steve Martin can be funny but not when it comes across as forced and repetitive. The white-trash jokes might be offensive to some but Carl’s foul-mouth boorish behaviour will be objectionable to almost everyone.

Despite some respectable performances the whole thing comes across as a sit-com rerun with the funny moments the groan or slight-smile-type rather than laugh out loud sort. And I won't even get into suspension of disbelief requirement.

CLASSIFICATION

for crude sexual humor, language and a drug reference.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
Kate and Rob stroll down a lane and pass by a fire hydrant then stop beside a lamppost. When they turn to retrace their steps they have been magically transported back some distance since now they are starting off very close to the fire hydrant.

P.S.
Although product placement has been around a long time sometimes it can be overdone and becomes very intrusive. Not content showcasing products to reduce the cost of production (Audi automobiles, Marriott hotels) there are many products for which they would charge a fee: several brands of beer, sugary snacks, baby products and the like. There should be some kind of law limiting the amount of advertising a paying audience is subjected to!

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.