Review of Baby Mama (2008) by Chads. — 24 Apr 2008
Tina Fey looks more like a writer than an Emmy-nominated actress for comedy, in "Baby Mama", a movie that the former-SNL Weekend Update anchor didn't write. Physical comedy, or improv, is definitely not her forte.
Somebody like Steve Martin, a former-standup comic, can work without a net. Fey, the surname, looks fey, the adjective, as she quavers her way through a performance-oriented video game, and especially at a night club, in which the filmmaker, leaves Fey and Amy Poehler to their own devices.
As Angie Ostrowiski, the "baby mama", Poehler doesn't fare any better than her partner-in-crime. At first, she comes off as a "white-trash" caricature(in one scene, "Baby Mama" rips off Bobby and Peter Farrelly's best gag in "Kingpin"), but then the film pulls punches, so much so, there's hardly any comic contrast between Kate Holbrook(Fey) and Angie.
For "Baby Mama" to work, Angie had to be the funny version of Juliette Lewis' character in Dominic Sena's "Kalifornia". Since "Baby Mama" isn't wise, or perceptive about surrogate motherhood, it should've gone buck-wild on the redneck jokes.
Since it was written by a man, why pretend otherwise? Fey should take solace, however, in the fact that a fellow bespectacled writer wasn't very funny either, when he starred in Paul Mazursky's "Scenes from a Mall", a movie he didn't write.
Call "Baby Mama" a learning curve for the hot creator(but not hotter than Lisa Loeb) of "30 Rock". The Tina Fey backlash doesn't start here.
This review of Baby Mama (2008) was written by Chads. on 24 Apr 2008.
Baby Mama has generally received positive reviews.
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