Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins

Directed by: Adam McKay

Sony Pictures

The Official Site of Step Brothers

Discuss Step Brothers on the boards!

Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay became a tight nit trio after working together on the hit NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights, followed by dozens of short videos on their humor site Funnyordie.com. For the most part what they’ve produced as a team has been the kind of laugh out loud nonsense you look forward to buying on DVD and spamming your friend’s e-mails with, but when plans were announced for the three of them to hit the big screen again as a team with Step Brothers, a juvenile battle between two man-children, I was less than enthusiastic.

It’s always great when people have a natural chemistry and the comedy flows effortlessly. You love to see it when a group of people get together and it’s just a perfect fit… but we’ve all seen that turn sour. (Ocean’s Twelve ring any bells?) Even in the face of decent trailers and that crazy “Sears family portrait� ad campaign, I couldn’t help wondering if Step Brothers was going to be a legitimately good movie, or a big budget reason for a group of friends to hang out all day and get paid for it? As nice as the idea of Ferrell, Reilly, and McKay doing a brand new project could be, I was haunted by the fear that Step Brothers would end up being a 90-mintue inside joke that the audience wasn’t in on. That it would be one of those movies that just makes you resent them all, not just as a team, but individually as well.

Step Brothers side-steps this little problem by doing the unthinkable: being funny and giving the audience what they want. It seems like such an obvious solution. It’s all there though. Step Brothers has big laughs, a solid story complete with a watered down message of knowing when to grow up but still being true to yourself, and unfortunately a little male nudity. You have to take a ball or two in stride though with something that turns out better than it should’ve.

Ferrell and Reily play Brennan and Dale, two 40-year-old’s that never progressed beyond age 16. They play video games all day, put cheese on everything, and take their parents for granted. When Dale’s father meets and falls for Brennan’s Mother the two high-maintenance children butt heads. The battle of who’s more of a retarded jackass yields some good stuff, but somehow the movie reaches a completely different level once the two become friends. “Two moronic forces working together are stronger than two moronic forces opposing each other.� I think Einstein said that. I’m not sure. I could be paraphrasing. Either way, the laughs are there and it was nice to see it work on two different levels.

I was especially impressed with Reily who has transitioned form “The Oscar nominee slumming it with the clowns� to “full fledged clown�, or in a less condescending way, “genuinely hysterical and more than capable of holding his own and stealing the spotlight from people that have been making it look easy for 15 years.� Yeah, that sounds better. I’ll admit that I wasn’t especially impressed with Reily’s last comedy Walk Hard, I thought it was a little too ambitious and didn’t completely connect, but the one thing that did work in it across the board was Reily. If he ever gets tired of being pushed around by Scorsese and Anderson, I think it’s safe to say that he’s found a home in comedy where he’ll be welcomed with open arms.

Step Brothers stretches on a little longer than it maybe should, but still manages to evolve and stay interesting, with new kinds of laughs. I was relived because this movie takes every one of my pessimistic expectations and answers them with a joke, a character or a plot point that will have me second guessing myself the next time I see Ferrell, Reily and McKay’s names above a features title and cringe.

Rating: 7 out of 10 - Step Brothers had all the makings of an annoying and aimless waste of time but managed to prove me wrong. It did so with, of all things, a lot of old people yelling at each other – something I normally hate. It’s the reason I never really cared for Everybody Loves Raymond. Turns out though, if you toss in a few F-bombs and a song about boats and hoes, it works just fine.

Before I go on – today’s incentive image features The Dunn Jun Sears family portrait ala the poster for Step Brothers (Groaning noise. Buzz is down until some big relaunch in August just follow this link to see it vote free.. It didn’t come out quite as well as I would have liked (I totally messed up the sweaters) but it’s worth a look. If you’re behind on the recent incentive comeback you can find the archived images here!

I would say the chances are strong but I’ve entered an interesting phase of my DVD buying career. My wife told me I couldn’t do it anymore. She was less matter-of-fact about it, but she appealed to my better judgement and asked me to consider the fact that we’re saving for a home and thinking about kids and that me buying a DVD or two a month adds up quick. And I don’t need the DVDs. Not the way I need my wife to be happy, so I’m happy to cut back for now.

If I weren’t, Step Brothers is one I would definitely add to my wish list, but not snatch up right away. It’s just asking to be bought in a 4 for 20 deal at blockbuster.

I’m thrilled at the response there’s been to the The Gotham Ninjas Athletic T. You guys were willing to support this fictional franchise and I’m very appreciative. The pre-order period is running through August 15th and we have the shirts in both men's and women's cuts. Shoot me an e-mail if you have any specific questions but the plan right now is to have these printed and shipped so that you’ll be sporting them on Labor Day.

In the review for The Dark Knight I promised you guys a comic and write-up for the brand new Watchmen trailer and it has since not gone up. I was getting ready to post it on Wednesday night when Phil pointed out to me that the Watchmen are one of the biggest attractions at this year’s Comic Con, which is being held this weekend. He mentioned how it would be worth it for me to wait until the coverage becomes available on line before I discuss the movie prematurely.

That made a lot of sense to me so I decided to hold off. However, I did promise you guys a comic so if you head over to this thread on the boards you can get an early look at the comic itself. I’d love to know what you all think. For the record, that comic has been on the boards since Thursday of last week, and the one for Step Brothers has been up in the members section since Friday. See what you’re missing if you don’t swing by the boards every once and a while?

Well that’s all for now – oh except twitter. If you twitter – twit (tweet?) me up here. Thanks for reading, everyone! And if you’d like more Step Brothers talk and a mention of the disappointing X-files, be sure to swing by tonight at 10pm for Triple Feature