Parents' Guide to Step Brothers

There are an incredible number of things wrong here, starting with the fact that the filmmakers seem all too content to let Reilly and Ferrell's antics stand in for any plot logic or sense. Within five minutes of the film's start, you're wondering why exactly Robert and Janet have put up with their crazed slacker sons for so long. But if they hadn't, you wouldn't have a plot for your movie. Of course, you still don't have much of one, but director Adam McKay seems remarkably content to let Ferrell and Reilly scream, shout, and flail their way through every scene, assuming that the audience will find their antics hilarious. Produced by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), Step Brothers has the raunchy rawness of his other comedies, but none of the sweetness or structure.

Overall, Step Brothers feels more like a marketing plan than a movie, more like a poster than a plot. Ferrell repeats his overly familiar wailing buffoon character, and Reilly matches him (shouted) note for (shouted) note. It's as if everyone involved was so sure that what they were doing was comedy gold that they didn't bother making an effort to create fully drawn characters or an actual plot; instead, we get two stars in thinly drawn parts that are entirely too similar to what we've seen them do many times before, drifting lazily from scene to scene with no real direction. What might have looked like a winning plan on paper -- more hilarity from the stars, folks behind hits like Anchorman and Talladega Nights! -- ends up playing out as a shabby, self-indulgent mess.