It's all the entertainment you need!

The Babymakers

Perhaps the funniest thing about The Babymakers is that a movie that revolves around the robbery of a sperm bank was co-written by a man named Gerry Swallow.  If he could write jokes as well as he can tailor his plots to suit his surname, then The Babymakers might be a treat.

But probably not.

The Babymakers is the attempt of the leaders of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe to grow up, kinda.  It is not in any way a mature film.  Nor is it particularly trenchant or emotionally resounding.  But they would like it to be, so that must be something, right?  Right?  Hello?  Is anyone out there?

The troupe has made a name for it's dumb humor in the likes of Beerfest, Club Dread, The Slammin' Salmon - it even captured a fluke hit with Super Troopers.

However, they have the intention of putting together something more here.  In fact, this film never once uses the Broken Lizard name, despite the fact that the two best-known members are there and accounted for (Kevin Heffernan and Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directs).  All the previous films had the Broken Lizard moniker as part of the title.

Now, since the guys have always treated everything with the seriousness of a seven-year-old boy, you have to know that when they get their hands on a subject like infertility, they will not be taking the high road to laughs.  Yet, The Babymakers tries to mix a maudlin streak into the normal Lizard shenanigans and botches it on both levels.

As you can tell by the title, the whole thing is about making babies.  Paul Schneider and Olivia Munn are Tommy and Audrey, a young couple who are in love, sexually active, hip and funny, but there is one thing missing.  She feels the biological clock ticking, but no matter how much they try, she can't seem to get pregnant.

Finally Audrey insists they go to see a specialist to see if there are any problems.  The doctor finds that her ovaries are fine, but Tommy has "lazy sperm."  He refuses to believe this, because in order to purchase her engagement ring, a few years earlier he was a regular depositor to his local sperm bank.  They didn't have any problems with his swimmers, so they have to be fine.

Cue a litany of masturbation jokes and flashbacks to him getting hit in the balls.  Funny stuff.

Finally giving in to the inevitable, he comes up with a brilliant idea - or at least what passes for a brilliant idea in this movie - he made deposits at the sperm bank, why not make a withdrawal? 

However, it turns out that it doesn't work that way.  The sperm bank has used all of their samples of his seed except for one, and that one has been promised to a gay couple.

It hardly seems like an insurmountable problem, therefore the filmmakers throw in some completely unrealistic barriers to keep Tommy and his spunk from reuniting.  Therefore, Tommy's stupidest friend (and none of his friends are close to Mensa candidates) comes up with a brainstorm.  Tommy and his loser buddies will rob the sperm bank, hiring a crazed Indian gangster (Chandrasekhar) as their mastermind.

This couldn't possibly end poorly, could it?

In fairness, Schneider and Munn are both good actors who give their all trying to save their ridiculous characters from the ridiculous situations, but they are given no quarter by the screenplay or their tone-deaf director.  Things get so bad that at one point in the movie, they break up after a knock-down drag-out argument and she moves out on him.  A few scenes later that is completely forgotten and she arrives home as if nothing happened.  This makes it seem like the filmmakers are hoping the audience will figure, well, the story makes no sense, so what is the point in keeping track of it?

No such luck, guys, though I wish dearly that I did not have to keep track of it.

However, if you find the idea of a fat man slipping and sliding in a massive pool of semen rib-tickling, you may like actually like The Babymakers.  You may also need professional help.  The rest of us should avoid The Babymakers like an STD.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2012 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 3, 2012.

RETURN TO MOVIE REVIEWS MENU

Copyright ©2012 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 3, 2012.