The only thing graying as quickly as Ben Stiller's hair in the Farrelly brothers' new film "The Heartbreak Kid" is the modern romantic comedy.
Fans of Ben Stiller's comedies may not be disappointed by his continued regurgitation of the same character in this typical Farrelly brothers' film, but the rest of us will lament having seen yet another formulaic movie.
"The Heartbreak Kid" unimaginatively follows 50-something Eddie's (Ben Stiller, "Night At the Museum") hasty marriage to a charming woman, Lila (Malin Akerman, "The Brothers Solomon"), who turns out to be less than endearing. On their honeymoon in Mexico, Eddie meets a new, more favorable woman, Miranda (Michelle Monaghan, "Mission: Impossible III"), and you can probably guess how the rest of the story unfolds.
The downfall of "The Heartbreak Kid," however, does not lie solely in its predictability. Such films still manage to feel like good fun if the jokes are right, but this film's jokes have mostly been seen before. "Heartbreak" attempts to take the romantic comedy and the teen sex comedy — except that it's more like an adult sex comedy — and mesh them together into something hilarious, except that in both cases the humor is uninventive. The difference between the teen sex comedy and the adult sex comedy, by the way, appears to be that the characters are older and, instead of just comically disastrous relationships, it involves comically disastrous marriages. "Heartbreak Kid" has, in fact, no fewer than three separate weddings.
Still, in terms of functioning as a sex comedy, it seems as though it would be the surprisingly raunchy sex scenes that would incite most of the redeeming laughs. It becomesquite clear, however, that said scenes were probably tossed in just to earn the movie an R rating, and perhaps to appeal more to college students and adults. Unfortunately, even middle-schoolers could follow the story — and probably the sex jokes — just as easily.
Perhaps the funniest moment in "The Heartbreak Kid" has nothing to do with awkward intimacy, but instead involves apple juice unexpectedly gushing out of the character Lila's nose over breakfast. The humor in that is in its unexpected randomness, although the nose joke is then beaten like a dead horse throughout the rest of the movie. Most of the other jokes are overly fabricated and the film's climax centers around a crassly juvenile bit involving urine and a ludicrous prop vagina complete with moving parts. The only funny part about this bit of humor is that somebody actually constructed the damned thing with enough pride to display it in theaters nationwide.
Somewhere between the "American Pie"-style humor and witless dialogue are some genuinely funny and endearing moments. Sadly, they are usually overshadowed by Ben Stiller's existence. Fortunately, Stiller's real-life father, Jerry Stiller, known mostly from his role as Frank Costanza on TV's "Seinfeld," frequently adds some much needed eccentricity as a highly laughable character, even if most of his discourse consists of lowbrow sex talk.
But hey! Sometimes all you need is a flick with brainless humor, and the Farrelly brothers will probably continue to make sure there is no shortage of films like "The Heartbreak Kid."
1.5 stars out of 5
