Baby Mama

For a long time, I didn't think Tina Fey was funny. At all. When she first started doing Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live some years ago, I thought for sure it was the end. Of Weekend Update. So I stopped watching it. Problem solved. 'Til Tina's spot-on Palin impression that took the country by storm. Now that the election is over and stuff is calming down, I figured I'd give Fey another try and check out her movie, Baby Mama.

The first thing about the movie I noticed is that it seemed like Fey just saw Knocked Up and realized that babies could get laughs, so they tossed a bunch of them in the beginning. In fact, if I had to mathematically break down this movie, it'd probably look like this: Knocked Up + Wedding Crashers + chick flick = Baby Mama. It's basically an Apatow production for women.

As far as the humor goes, it's there, but it's not the main attraction. Tina Fey is the straight man and Amy Poehler is the funny man, it's as simple as that. Poehler delivers most of the jokes, and is the rest of them. In fact, I'd say that Poehler put in the best performance of all the characters in Baby Mama. She was the funniest, the most dynamic, AND in the movie she actually grew up and matured, something I've always wanted to see happen to Amy Poehler, on screen or off. Fey seemed like she was basically herself with a bossy hat on, and her character never really changed at all, even at the end of the movie she seemed like she had just fallen back into place where she used to be with a few situational details modified. Greg Kinnear played the same role he plays in half of his movies, but that was fine with me. Steve Martin basically played Kevin Nealon's role in Grandma's Boy. The side characters were pretty mundane and under-developed, but I guess that's why they're side characters.

When you take off all the bells and whistles, Baby Mama is a typical chick flick dramedy -- two people get close, one person messes it up, sad music montage leads to a happy ending in a convenient twist of circumstance. Is it worth watching? Yes. Tina Fey put together an entertaining cast of actors and characters to back her up. Is it funny enough to be called a comedy? It's debatable, but Poehler and Romany Malco definitely get some good laughs. Did it make me like Tina Fey any more than previously? I'd say so.

4/7