Admission

Like some of the high school seniors it depicts frantically attempting to impress during the interminable, stressful college application period, Admission tries a little too hard. Scenes are loaded with please-laugh, please-like moments: An uptight woman's mother is a sexual free spirit, leering at others openly while her daughter cringes; a guy helps a cow give birth (and he has no idea how); high school students openly deride a college admissions officer's presentation (and she responds with witty comebacks). It's all a little too much, frankly, leaving with you with the sense -- perhaps the same sense that an admissions officer gets when reading an overbaked application -- that all isn't as great as it tries to appear.

Fey and Rudd aren't the problem: They're funny, they have great comic timing, and they share an easy rapport. Perhaps it's that the film has too much good material to mine: The college application process alone has plenty of potential, and although Admission tries to capitalize on it, it does so with jokes we've heard before. It would have done better to take advantage of its behind-the-curtains point of view (as it is, except for a satisfying scene in which the admissions officers duke it out over applicants, debating the merits of each one, we don't see much that's new or surprising). While not everything on the big screen needs to be refreshing, the fact that the leads are charming and funny isn't enough to make Admission stand out above the crowd.