CAST
Tina Fey as Kate Holbrook
Amy Poehler as Angie Ostrowski
Greg Kinnear as Rob Ackerman
Romany Malco as Oscar Priyan
Dax Shepard as Carl Loomis
Sigourney Weaver as Chaffee Bicknell
Steve Martin as Barry Waterman
DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Michael McCullers
CURRENT RATING ON ROTTENTOMATOES.COM
63%
TOP CRITICS: 61%
The Circumstance
It was towards the end of finals week when I went over to my friend's place to watch Bridesmaids (excellent movie by the way; totally recommend). Anyways...she is roomates with this guy that we knew since high school and happens to be the son of our high school mentor. Everytime I seem to go over there, we always stay up late talking about the most random things. Like always, somehow this night turned from a simple two hour movie night to an eight hour disscussion on anything and almost everything in the world...yeah...didn't go to bed until four...
From this night, I took two things away from it: watch 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later (I was advised to not watch this movie alone, at night, or in the dark) and watch Baby Mama.
Both my friend and her roomate said and I quote, "Oh, if you love Bridesmaids you will love Baby Mama. It is so hilarious. Come on, it even has Tina Fey and Amy Poehler!" I put my good faith in them and watched the movie a week later....yeah.
Although not comparable to Kristen Wig and the comedy of Bridesmaids. Baby Mama provides decent entertainment with somewhat favorable characters.
The Review
The movie begins with Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey), who has always placed her career before her personal life. basically telling her date that she wants to have a child at this point of time...which causes him to flee the restaurant in pure terror. This scene is followed by how Kate is trying to get a child through many methods including adoption and artificial insmeination. When she finds out that it may take years for her to adopt, she also discovers that her uterus is T-shaped and it would be a one in million chances for her to be able to concieve a child. How the doctor emphasizes the "one in a million chances" almost came off as a foreshadow to the rest of the film. See below what I'm talking about...
I tried to give the film the benefit of the doubt (not wanting to have figured the ending of the film at the beginning) and continued watching the rest of the movie with that thought simmering on the backburner of my mind.
When Kate discovers her infertility, she turns to a company that specializes in providing surrogate mothers for those who aren't able to concieve children. At this company, you meet the owner, Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver).
I found everything about this character annoying. Repeated thousands of times during the film (over drastic), different characters poke fun at the fact that "how can she be old and still have kids?" and how Chaffee basically rubs it in Kate's face that she can have babies when Kate can't Of course, this "joke" became extremely old extremely fast. Also...there's that other thing... It seems like everytime she moves, breathes, talks, sighs, or whatever; her hair gives this annoying bounce. It might just be me but I just wanted to scream every time she spoke.
Kate then finds Angie (Amy Poehler) who will act as a surrogate for her fertilized eggs. The film ensues as Angie and Kate cope with living together after Angie's common law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard), kicks her out. We see the conflicting characters of both women as they go through Angie's pregnancy.
On the side of the main story, we also have Kate and her career with her boss, Barry (Steve Martin), and her developing romance with Rob (Greg Kinnear).
We soon discover towards the middle of the movie that Angie and Carl had faked the pregnancy when the fertilization failed so they could still cash in the check. It just turned out that she was pregnant after all but with Carl's baby. But it might still be Kate's baby since Angie didn't wait two weeks after the fertilization to take a home pregnancy test...Yeah confusing I know especially when you have to try and understand this plot conflict with dimwitted characters.
My big pet peeve when it comes to movies: I don't them to be predictable. When finding out that Angie was maybe pregnant with Carl's baby, that same light from earlier clicked on. One and a million chances...yeah that light. I figured "this movie will probably want to have a happy ending where both women can have their own babies" and yeah pretty much. Come on, it was totally obvious what was going to happen especially after Kate's date with Rob. They went back to his apartment to do very adult things...I was like "yeah totally gonna get knocked up!"
Another thing about this movie that didn't match the humor as the aforementioned Bridesmaids. I felt the humor was stupid, pointless, and just plain annoying. For one, the scene where Angie needed to use the toilet but it was locked with a child safety device. Instead calling for help like any normal person would have done, she peed in the sink. Maybe it just my humor but I found that scene illogical and not funny like maybe others would have found it funny. See this scene of sheer stupidity below...
Another scene that annoyed me was the court scene where they were going to read if the baby was Kate's or not. It just become this fiasco of dialogue that just didn't make sense anymore. The characters were thoroughly dimwitted providing unnecessary lawyers and statements that shouldn't have been provided. I could totally feel what the judge was feeling in that scene...
All though the intent was to be humorous in these scenes and a few others, it came out as desperate trying to scavenge the humor from the characters' stupidity which in turn come off as stale and annoying. Granted, the presence of all-star Saturday Night Live players, Tina and Amy, provided decent entertainment because they are fantastic comedians.
Also the presence of comedy veteran, Steve Martin, is a great additive to the movie. His character comes off as completely creepy and weird and is probably the only hilarious aspect of the film. Just see what I'm talking about below...
This movie didn't live up the comparison of comedy like Bridesmaids but it had its own quirks that shouldn't be missed despite its flaws. I would only recommend this film if you really like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler and also if you are bored and don't want to laugh too much. Not the best in film but not the worst of films.
The Rating
The film had good intentions...
One film reel for Tina and Amy. A half for Steve Martin.
And NO Film Reel for you Sigourney Weaver!!!
Until next time...
