A Mix of Fergie and Jesus

The nice thing about my not having seen Talladega Nights, Semi-Pro, or Blades of Glory is that now, Step Brothers actually feels sorta fresh, and not like another lame retread of the same Will Ferrell jokes I've seen so many times before. Reteaming with his Talladega costar John C. Reilly, Ferrell plays Brennan, a 39-year-old stunted growth adult who still lives with his mother. Reilly plays Dale, a 40-year-old stunted growth adult who still lives with his father. When the two parents fall in love and get married, Brennan and Dale become reluctant step brothers who fight like cats and dogs. But they find common ground (velociraptors, John Stamos, sleepwalking, etc.) and all is well. And then it's not good. And then it is again. And the good news is that even if you've seen the trailer, you haven't seen all the best scenes. I mean, Step Brothers is not going to go down in the annals of great comedies. But it's nice to see Ferrell playing someone relatively real, as opposed to the cartoonish athlete characters he's played lately. More importantly, he and Reilly look like they're having an awful lot of fun here, and that helped me to have a great time watching it too. So I'm going to give Step Brothers a B.