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.jpg) If I told you that “Baby Mama” was written and directed by Michael McCullers and that he co-wrote all three Austin Powers movies with Mike Myers, you’d probably expect “Mama” to be pretty good. If I then told you that McCullers’ also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2004 re-launch of “Thunderbirds,” you might expect differently.
The film focuses on Tina Fey’s character Kate Holbrook, a career woman working for a Whole Foods-like grocery chain. Kate has hit a turning point in her life and she has baby-fever. Everywhere she goes she sees babies and wants one of her own. She enlists the help of a surrogate agency after finding she has no chance of ever conceiving. Chaffee Bicknell, the agent’s head played by Sigourney Weaver, puts her in touch with Angie Ostrowiski (Amy Poehler) the woman that will have Kate’s child…at a price.
Fey plays Kate as her character on “30 Rock,” Liz Lemon. Kate and Liz are essentially the same character, so Fey is pretty good in her role. Where the film fails is everywhere else. Angie is a self-centered and white-trashy woman, which leads her to be the comic foil for Fey’s Kate. Kate finds herself in a struggle to control an uncontrollable situation. If you’ve guessed that these two characters will learn to be more like each other by the end of the film, you’ve guessed correctly. Kate will learn to be more lenient and Angie will learn to be more grown up. Sigh, we’ve all learned something.
Poehler’s Angie isn’t a consistent character at all. Her character attributes change based on what the scene requires. Some scenes call for her to be innocent and sweet, others stupid and white-trashy, but she’s never a mix of all of her character traits. The character never seems real, but a creation of her surroundings and what the director wants her to be at that moment.
The predictable nature of the screenplay is the most frustrating part of “Baby Mama.” This film telegraphs each joke and each joke is far too easy. Angie makes fun of Kate’s health food, talking about how bad it tastes and eagerly vomiting out bad tasting food. Kate cringes at Angie’s playing of the film’s big in-show promotion of Karaoke Revolution. She’s a terrible singer! Funny, right!?! If you’d bet that Kate and Angie play the promotional game in a moment of “see! We can get along!” then, you’d be right! Extra points if you guessed that they’d be singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” The film hasn’t met a cliché that it can’t cram into a filmed promotion of a video game.
The film does throw a curveball into the mix about half-way through and I thought that it may make things interesting, but all it does is telegraph more scenes and more jokes. The interesting twists never come. Even Kate’s quickly developing relationship with Greg Kinnear’s Rob seems like a half-warmed-over television romance. Where the film could be daring and interesting, the film turns boringly predictable and average.
There are some funny aspects to the film, including a strangely humorous turn from Steve Martin as Kate’s boss, but they are all supporting characters and inconsequential to our main story. Even generally solid comedians like Will Forte and Fred Armisen seem to phone this one in. The script fails the actors here as usually funny people fail to do anything generally funny. The entire film feels like a cheap cash-in for its actors and a big promotion for Karaoke Revolution.
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