Thursday, December 4, 2008

Step Brothers

Genre - Comedy
Year Released - 2008
Running Time - 105 minutes
Directed by Adam McKay (who also directed Anchorman - which I did not like - and Talladega Nights - which I have no desire to see)
Written by Adam McKay, (who also wrote Anchorman & Talladega Nights) Will Ferrell, (who also wrote A Night at the Roxbury, and also co-wrote Anchorman & Talladega Nights) and John C. Reilly
Cast Includes:
Will Ferrell (Elf, Old School, Kicking & Screaming, etc)
John C. Reilly (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights)
Mary Steenburgen (Elf, The Brave One, and Four Christmases)
Richard Jenkins
Adam Scott

Rating: 3 Skulls

Plot Summary:
Brennan Huff and Dale Doback - two grown men still living at home - turn into jealous, competitive stepbrothers when their single parents marry.
Brennan's constant competition with Dale strains his mom's marriage to Dale's dad.
Will the reluctant step siblings ever see eye to eye? And more importantly, will they ever leave the nest?

Review:
I found the concept of this movie to be pretty funny - two 40 year-old spoiled "children" who become stepbrothers, and even though Will Ferrell is 'hit or miss' with me, I felt that he and John C. Reilly [I loved Walk Hard] were perfectly cast to play stepbrothers.

The movie was decent and is worth renting, though it is not a movie that I would watch multiple times. It definitely had its moments - it has some great one-liners - one of my favorites being when Brennan (Will Ferrell) asks his younger brother, Derek (Adam Scott) if he knows what is good for shoulder pain - I do not know why, but I laughed out loud at his response - it just caught me right! :-)

My favorite part of the movie though was the conversation that Brennan & Dale had, at night, while lying in bed - the back and forth dialogue was absolutely hysterical - I was dying!

I felt that the down-side of the movie was that it just seemed to be all over the place.
I wish they would have focused more on some of the minor side story lines [such as Brennan & Dale messing with Brennan's younger brother, Derek, while he was attempting to sell their parents house - that was only a few minutes of the movie, while it could have been much more!]
Other story lines just seemed absurd to me - the whole Dale & Alice (Derek's wife) storyline was just ridiculous. Also, the whole thing with Brennan & Dale sleep walking - pointless!
Overall, like I said before - while not great, it is worth watching, at least once.
Seth Rogen has a pretty funny cameo, and there is a hysterical Deleted Scene ["Hulk Hands"] which should have been included in the movie!

Here's the Trailer:



Jason

2 comments:

Smirking Revenge said...

Nothing related at all to Step Brothers, though I still have the flick in my netflix queue. Not sure if you caught any of the BSG trailers Turkey day. If not: http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/youwillknowthetruth/ certainly has some little tidbits that will keep you happy. Or at least it has for me. *grin* Hope you are well.

thebonebreaker said...

I did not catch any of the trailers - I shall go to the site now - thank you very much!! :-)

P.S. Did you hear that the planned 'Caprica' prequel movie has now turned into an entire prequel season?!?
Sci-Fi just green-lit a 20-episode run - I am not sure that this is really needed, but I'll take whatever I can get! ;-)

J