Sisters

The Saturday Night Live (SNL) alumni are back...well, three of them at least. If you like the sketches from that iconic show which has provided the movie world with comedic actors ranging from Steve Martin to Eddie Murphy, you should enjoy this raunchy, smutty and crude comedy. It's definitely not for everyone's tastes with jokes likely to offend conservative viewers. Just like comedy skits from these types of TV shows, some of the jokes succeed resulting in uproarious laughter while others produce a mere snigger or nothing at all. At close to two hours, the movie tends to overstay its welcome and could have benefited from a 15-20 minute edit to eliminate the jokes that didn't work. 

The titular sisters are Maura (Amy Poehler) and Kate (Tina Fey). Both Ellis women are experiencing setbacks in their lives. Maura is coming off a divorce while Kate simply refuses to grow up even though she is the mother of a teenage daughter (Madison Davenport). They don't need any more complications but another one arises when the Ellis' parents (James Brolin and Dianne Weist) Skype Maura to inform her that they intend to sell the family home. Maura's job is to entice Kate to return home and together, they must clean out their bedroom which has remain untouched since they moved out of home. When they discover that their home has already been sold and their parents are now staying in a retirement home, they plan a farewell party at their family home before they must vacate the premises.

There's nothing subtle about this comedy here, mainly vulgarity of the highest order. Since this viewer doesn't mind sex comedies, there wasn't anything offensive although it's easy to see why many people wouldn't like this movie. Dirty jokes aside, the story does have something to say about the family unit but luckily doesn't preach to its audience. 

Sisters occasionally feels like an extended sketch comedy show, albeit raunchy in nature. Jason Moore is the director and his only other directing credit is Pitch Perfect, which is tame compared to the humour in Sisters. Paula Pell is the writer who has mainly written gags for SNL so this is probably the main reason why it feels like sketch comedy at times. 

It might frustrate some viewers to see some overacting from several cast members to extend the life of a particular joke but that can sometimes be representative of comedy sketches. When the jokes do fire, the overstated gestures, expressions and voices actually help. Maya Rudolph is one of the actresses who fits in this category of overacting at times but when she pulls it off, she is absolutely hilarious. She plays Brinda, the childhood enemy of the Ellis girls who hasn't been invited to their party but gatecrashes it anyway. Another larger than life character is Alex (Bobby Moynihan), the nerd who runs rampant when he takes some drugs supplied by drug dealer, Pazuzu (John Cena). Watch out for Greta Lee who plays Hae- Won, the Korean beauty consultant who steals some of the laughs from her more illustrious co-stars. 

Poehler, Fey and Rudolph are the ex-cast members of SNL and they seem to be having a riotous time, with their antics pleasing viewers who enjoy this type of comedy. Don't take it seriously, open your mind and go along for the ride, you're bound to experience more than a few laughs and even more so if you're a fan of gutter humour. http://mlaimlai2.wix.com/magical-movie-review

Really not sure where all the super negative reviews are coming from, I guess just people who consider themselves too good for this type of raunchy and silly humor. Sisters is about two immature women refusing to grow up, adults reliving their teenage years, and that is what is so funny about it. It is over the top sometimes, but comedy is supposed to be different from reality. If everyone was behaving like mature adults in this movie, it would be boring and it would last 15 minutes. "Oh, mom and dad, you're selling the house? Well awesome I hope you get a good deal, see you at Christmas..." Now I will admit there were a few misses with this movie, the end dragged on a little too long, but overall I enjoyed all the characters and most of the jokes were great.

Amy Poehler and her co-star/producer Tina Fey are uber-talented performers -no one questions that. But one has to question their capacity for necessary self- criticism before handing in a "work of art", which cinema aspires to, although one wouldn't suspect it capable of same after watching "Sisters". This is frankly among the worst major studio A-level production films released since the close of the Silent Era.

Would that the twosome had remained silent. They elected, clearly as an integral element of the project, to go "Blue" - litter the screen with vulgarity and porno-film language (without the XXX visuals of course). One of my favorite comedians growing up was Woody Woodbury, a Florida comic big in the '50s and '60s who had several hit comedy LPs a la Newhart & Cosby. He would mark one side of an album "The Blue Side", and listening to both, it was clear he could be funny with or without extreme vulgarity of the Redd Foxx/Belle Barth school. This was before warning labels were invented.

Obviously Fey & Amy are funny without, but you'd never know it per "Sisters". The basic "high-concept" premise, of arrested-development characters aged 42 reverting to their high school memories and antics, not via a reunion but rather a blow-out party on the occasion of the sisters losing their ancestral home, is cornball and the plot developments it inspires, notably the silly romance of Amy with an easy-going handy man stud of a neighbor plus final reels "suspense" as Fey must shift gears and work toward preserving the sold house to get the inheritance- style bequest and start a new life, rather than continuing its childish destruction, are preposterously old-hat.

So we suffer through sketch antics of the duo and many tough-to-embarrass alumni and alumnae of SNL, doing slapstick and idiotic turns that are always infantile. A horrible Pauly Shore comedy film of the '90s is far superior to the kindergarten-level humor presented here, gussied up with soft-X language but still aimed at morons. Pretending the audience is even dumber than it is (I'm not pretending that today's moviegoers are sophisticated, given their predilection for fake 3-D, fake IMAX and anything the DC and Marvel conglomerates throw at them) strikes me as not merely insulting but clearly counter-productive to one's career.

Finally, the worst sin committed by "Sisters" and its progenitors is a more subtle issue that has bothered me of late. My favorite and the key independent filmmaker of all time was John Cassavetes, and audiences and some critics believed his films were improvised -that was the tag hung around his neck. In fact he work-shopped his movies, with lots of rehearsals involving improv, used to lock in the final script. Poehler & Fey have taken this one step further and drained the life out of the spontaneity that makes their stand-up careers so successful.

Even Jonathan Winters, perhaps the greatest improviser/stream of consciousness comic ever, had signposts and familiar long-developed ideas that would come out when he would pick up some prop and speak spontaneously, often with hilarious results. But watching "Sisters" every routine, especially the shaggy-dog crap of Poehler endlessly mispronouncing the Korean manicurist's name, is dead, having been over-thought and finally making the movie's final cut "as if" it were spontaneous. "Fake spontaneity" is far worse and even more boring than the canned, overly tight "filmed play" phenomenon at the other end of the spectrum, as evidenced here.

Not funny, awkward at best, very shallow theme throughout, middle aged women prancing around like kids, not convincing in their roles.. Annoyed that I wasted my evening..

I have never written a review before, but I was moved by my disappointment. All the publicity and promotion. I expected more.

There isn't really much of a story line to critique. It fails in every aspect. The script lacks depth, the jokes are poor, visually there is nothing exceptional to remark on.

Light hearted movies with poor scripts at least keep the audience entertained with visuals (e.g attractive cast/nice cars/art/architecture/fun parties etc). Sadly this movie also fails to this regard...

Let's get one thing straight: Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler are comedy royalty and at this point, they deserve to coast a bit. Even though this isn't Grade-A material, they remain a likeable duo to kill an hour and a half with. Surprisingly, the film does land a couple chuckles early on. As it drags on, it falters a bit by leaning too heavily into it's inane plot rather than simply being a string of jokes. The premise barely classifies as an idea, essentially boiling down to "what if middle aged people had a party?" It's vaguely entertaining fluff that will hold your attention but won't stand out much in your memory once it's over.