The audience can sense when a bad comedy is in play when the cast is obviously trying way too hard to make us laugh. New Year's Eve is an example of this. An even better example of this is the new Broken Lizard film The Babymakers. I have loved everything from the comedy troupe so far. From Puddle Cruiser to The Slammin Salmon..they are just funny people. While many of them are not in the newest film...I can still say it is the first film from them that I genuinely dislike.
The film stars Paul Schneider who you may know as playing Mark Brendanawicz...the straight man on TV's Parks and Recreation. Here..he plays Tommy..a nice guy who is trying to have a baby with his wife Audrey (Olivia Munn.) When he finds out due to his sperm donations to pay for a wedding ring...he does not have good sperm...his friend Wade (Kevin Hefferman) decides to help him rob the sperm bank before his last batch of sperm is gone. Along for the ride are Ron Jon (Jay Chandrasekhar)...a former and incompetent criminal and Zig Zag (Nat Faxon)...Wade and Tommy's other friend.
The problem with the film is that it is too disjointed. At some points...it feels as if it wants to be a drama about trying to make a family. At other points...it feels as if it finds anything related to sperm funny. There is a scene towards the end in which a character keeps slipping and falling down into sperm that may be the stupidest thing to ever appear in a film.
The other problem is that the film does not take advantage of its great cast. When you have such funny and talented people as Munn, Schneider, Faxon, Hefferman and Chandrasekhar...you better damn well make me laugh. Unfortunately...despite a few scattered laughs...the film failed in that aspect.
With a humdrum narrative and jokes that fall flat on the ground...The Babymakers is not particularly bad. It will fail to make most people laugh, however and that is the biggest sin of any comedy.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for crude and sexual content, brief graphic nudity, language and some drug use)
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