The Heartbreak Kid movie poster
D-
FilmJabber
B-
Users
YOUR RATING
A
B
C
D
F
The Heartbreak Kid movie poster

The Heartbreak Kid Movie Review

Now available on Blu-ray and DVD (Buy on Amazon)

From the guys who brought us There's Something About Mary comes a Ben Stiller movie that falls on the opposite end of the spectrum. The Heartbreak Kid, directed by the Farrelly brothers, is one of the lamest, dumbest and unfunniest comedies I've seen in a long while.

I used to love Farrelly brother movies, but they are long past their prime. The days of Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary are over, and these guys clearly don't know what to do with themselves now that gross-out comedies are no longer in style. Fever Pitch was a disaster, but The Heartbreak Kid is by far their worst movie. Dull, boring and ridiculously unfunny, The Heartbreak Kid misses as many times as There's Something About Mary hit the mark.

The movie stars Ben Stiller as a man who has always been afraid of commitment. When he meets the girl of his dreams (Malin Akerman), however, he decides to take the plunge after only six weeks. The happy couple head on down to Cabo for their honeymoon, and that is when Hell unleashes itself. As Stiller soon discovers, his wife isn't as perfect as he first thought: she sings loudly, she can't control liquids in her nose, she's terrible at math and she's even a freak in bed. Horrified, Stiller tries to give her the benefit of the doubt, but things just keeping getting worse and worse - until he meets another perfect woman (Michelle Monaghan).

There are just so many things wrong with The Heartbreak Kid, I don't know where to start. First off, Ben Stiller once again plays Ben Stiller. Is anyone else tired of this guy? Second, the problems with the wife are so many and ludicrous that it's hard to take seriously (even in a comedy), and you get the feeling that the Farrelly brothers are truly desperate for laughs anywhere they can get them. Third, the storyline is just disturbing. A guy falls in love with another woman on his honeymoon, and we're supposed to feel sorry for him?

The last twenty minutes of the movie are just terrible. While the first hour is pretty bad, it's not unwatchable by any means, but the entire third act is just dreadful. Let's just say there's a lot of scenes of a very scruffy Ben Stiller running around trying to sneak across the Mexico-U.S. border. Yeah, you heard right.

But basically, The Heartbreak Kid just shoots blanks for an hour and a half. The movie has plenty of opportunities to be funny, and it just isn't. Avoid this one at all costs.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.

D-
FilmJabber
B-
Users
YOUR RATING
A
B
C
D
F