Quick Unbox Review: Baby Mama

Last Friday my partner and I sat down with nothing to do for the first time in months. With the knowledge that we both had to be out the door early in the morning we settled in and downloaded a flick off of Amazon Unbox and onto our TiVo. First of all I can’t say enough about this service. While the selection is somewhat limited, the downloads are quick and the picture quality is high. Sure a DVD from Netflix would look a little better but for instantaneous gratification, you can’t beat Unbox. That all being said, let’s move on to the flick itself.

Baby Mama is the kind of throwaway movie that makes you smile and laugh but breaks down if you think about it too much. In brief, anytime you have Tina Fey and Amy Pohler on camera together, you’ve got comedy gold. Unfortunately the two are often saddled with extra set pieces and a sappy dopey plot you see a mile awhile. Fey and Pohler did some rewrites on this script but it still feels like an old Meg Ryan or Debra Messing vehicle. You have the feeling if Fey had passed, this would have come out starring Katherine Heigl and Jessica Simpson. The two leading men could have been anyone, and while Greg Kinnear is his normal affable self, Dax Shepherd is quickly proving he’s only worthy of playing a variation on the white trash role he perfected on Punked. Fey and Pohler do provide the laughs especially when they’re riffing on each other. You have a feeling that might have been more on the cutting room floor but at over 90 minutes this film runs long enough. Final verdict is that this is a good movie for background entertainment and if you can get past the predictable ending and musical montage you’ve got yourself a passable Fey/Pohler vehicle. Onward and upward ladies.