Step Brothers

Step Brothers may well be the epitome of the 2000s Will Ferrell comedy genre. It centers around two grown men (Ferrell and John C. Reilly) who still act much like children and live with their respective parent. Once their parents get married, the two men now live together and the antics ensue. Overall this movie seems to focus on a more immature, “dumb” approach to comedy. Many of the jokes are in the same vein of bathroom humor or a back and forth of people loudly yelling insensible things. While this brand of comedy made up the majority of the film, there was still some presence of genuine clever comedy. I assume these bits came from Adam McKay’s writing contribution. Speaking of which, I never realized that the man behind The Big Short and the upcoming film Vice was also the director and producer of every Ferrell Reilly duo movie. That is quite a directorial range.

I am largely a fan of this McKay and Ferrell’s cooperative work, though I have to say that Step Brothers is by far my least favorite. With the movie being a comedy of this type I had no expectations of the narrative itself being great, it wasn’t, and I don’t believe that it has to be. I tend to judge these types of comedies in the same way I do stand up specials: was it a good experience? It is important that all films be entertaining at the end of the day, though for most comedies that is about all you have. Not that there aren’t comedy movies that are well made, but for the Will Ferrell ones they generally have a story that leaves something to be desired. I found that Step Brothers relies more on a type of slapstick comedy more than anything else, with it generally being a more childish form of slapstick that I didn’t really enjoy as much as their other movies like Anchorman. That being said there are some interactions or scenes that were really entertaining such as both dinner scenes with Derek and especially the Catalina Wine Mixer scene.

The three main characters of this movie are Dale, Brennan and Brennan’s successful younger brother Derek. Adam Scott kills it as Derek and was the highlight of nearly every scene he was a part of. Derek is such a douchey hatable character that is very fun to watch. After seeing him interact with the family, you entirely understand how this common enemy was able to bring together the two stepbrothers. My issue with the characters of Brennan and Dale was that not only were they both the same, but they were also both the same (descriptor indicating the characters personality was underwritten) character. Both character’s personalities are described with one sentence: ~40-year-old who acts like a child. Aside from that, the only thing that designates them (apart from their appearance) is that one plays drums and the other sings.  While I understand that one of the biggest points of the movie was that these two were practically the same person, I wish that the characters were their own people who were just very similar. On the bright side though we do get to see a genuine dynamic character change in Dale, Brennan, and Derek. Both Dale and Brennan learn to be responsible while still being themselves and effectively “grow up” while Derek realizes how badly he had been treating his brother and begins to change his ways of douche-bagery.

I didn’t find the writing for this movie to be particularly great. Or really that good. Maybe just okay. Though that didn’t stop the movie from being quoted again and again when it was first released. As for the other technical aspects, nothing really stood out. They weren’t going for some incredible feat of cinematography or to do something groundbreaking with the film score. By no means were either aspect bad, though they were just unremarkable. One thing that was remarkable though was the picture quality of the 4K Blu Ray disc. There are a few scenes that have brighter lighten and those scenes looked fantastic in 4K, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it upscaled considering the original movie is a decade old. I’m not sure if the audio was updated for the 4K version but if it was it is almost indistinguishable from the regular Blu-Ray.

Overall:

Step Brothers while having a cultural impact and having many lines quoted to this day,  mostly relies on a type of physical comedy that mostly falls flat. Though some lines and scenes really shine through the overall film wasn’t anything special.