STUDIO: Sony
RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2008
STARRING: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott, and Kathryn Hahn
WRITTEN BY: Will Ferrell & Adam McKay
DIRECTED BY: Adam McKay
GENRE: Comedy
RATING: R

It truly has been an awful season for mainstream comedy, hasn't it? Made of Honor, What Happens in Vegas, Sex and the City, Get Smart, The Love Guru, You Don't Mess With the Zohan. A few of those flicks may have their fans, but even they would have to admit that it's been TOUGH to find classic comedies this summer. We all held out hope that the pattern would change in late July and August with the triple threat of Step Brothers, The Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder - three, R-rated comedies hoping to be this season's Knocked Up or Superbad. Forget those peaks. We were just looking for something that could actually connect with the funny bone. Good news. The first bullet out of this comedy chamber connects (and at least one more...but we'll get to that when it comes out). It doesn't live up to some of the summer laughers of recent years that were instant classics - Wedding Crashers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad - but Step Brothers is the funniest movie so far this year.

John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell play Dale and Brennan, respectively, two man-children who not only still live at home but still have Heavy Metal posters on their walls, play in treehouses, and don't know how to talk to girls. They're not just ten-year-old boys trapped in the bodies of grown men - they're the most obnoxious, lazy, unpopular ten-year-old jerks in school. Before the credits even finish rolling, Dale's dad (Richard Jenkins) and Brennan's mom (Mary Steenburgen) have met, had a fling, fallen in love, gotten married, and moved in together. Of course, like any obnoxious pre-teen in a man's body, Dale and Brennan don't take to each other right away. In fact, they try to kill each other. But, when they're practically forced to work together to save their family from falling apart, they discover that they have a lot in common. Enemies turn to best friends and Step Brothers goes from a mildly amusing summer diversion to a pretty damn funny buddy comedy. It's like Dumb & Dumber if Harry and Lloyd swore a lot. /p>

Playing their man-boys as a cross between the innocent naivete of Steve Carell's character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Steve Martin's classic in The Jerk, Ferrell and Reilly are having a total, improv-driven blast in Step Brothers. As with most pieces this improvisational (there are clearly scenes that were loosely written and Reilly and Ferrell are just allowed to riff), Step Brothers is wildly hit-and-miss, but it's remarkable in just how wide the pendulum swings. There are moments in Step Brothers that fall so completely flat that you'll hear the projector spin in the theater and there's some gross-out humor (like watching a grown man wipe his ass with a bathroom rug) that's completely unnecessary. But every complete miss is matched by at least a pair of total hits. There are a few moments, lines, and scenes in Step Brothers that are among the funniest of the year to date and the go-for-it glee that Reilly, Ferrell, and even the supporting cast (Jenkins and Kathryn Hahn nearly steal the movie) bring to the affair is infectious. The slow, predictable start and a few of those flat jokes and scenes keep Step Brothers back from true comedy greatness, but it's a movie that's never boring and more often funny than it's not, two things that I haven't been able to say about most of the product in this genre this year. Maybe we really can laugh again.