Mediocre comedy

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2009)

I could easily sum up my feelings on this one in three words: Not Enough Laughs. But I'll go a little further, 'cause I know that's hardly satisfying. Paul Rudd is a newly engaged man who realizes that he doesn't have any male friends. Where his future wife has seven brides maids, he hasn't a groomsman to his name, let alone a Best Man. The film plays like a romance, except it's about a guy looking for a guy friend. It even ends with his guy friend rushing to the wedding. The guy he finds is Jason Segel, who, for the first time, gets Rudd to act like a guy. Which, of course, ends up upsetting his wife-to-be. Everything's very predictable here. But, I'll say it again, it would all be forgivable if there were laughs. There are some, but never big ones. I might be more forgiving if it weren't for the bevy of fantastic comedies we've had in the past few years. Last year alone there was Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Step Brothers and Pineapple Express. Those three are enough to keep you laughing for weeks, and you remember the laughs. So many laughs, in fact, that after I saw each of those films I forgot many of those laughs. Not because they were forgettable, but because other big laughs replaced the first laughs! Nothing at all like that here. For the first time in a while, at least among the other films made by the actors featured in this film, almost all of the good moments were in the commercials. And, I must add, this film must set a record for the biggest waste of a great cast: Jaime Pressly, Jane Curtin, J.K. Simmons, Andy Sandberg, Joe Lo Truglio and Thomas Lennon appear. Most of them get a joke or two (except Curtin  why cast Jane Curtin and not give her one gag?), but with all those great comedians, you want more.