Fey, Poehler provide laughs in ‘Baby Mama’

Friday, May 2, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo K.C. Bailey⁄Universal Studios Single businesswoman Kate (Tina Fey) hires working girl Angie (Amy Poehler) to be her surrogate in the comedy, ‘Baby Mama,’ which opens Friday. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story   Baby Mama Comedy Rated: PG13 Length: 96 minutes Director: Michael McCullers Cast: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Romany Malco, Dax Shepard, Steve Martin, Sigourney Weaver

If the answer is having Amy Poehler (‘‘Horton Hears a Who!”) serve as a surrogate mother you’re going to love ‘‘Baby Mama.”

Kate (Tina Fey, ‘‘30 Rock”) wishes she could experience motherhood — or at least the idealized version of it — despite her sister Caroline (‘‘ER” star Maura Tierney, who is a far more talented actress than this glorified cameo would indicate) showing her the reality of raising a child.

With adoption out, she opts to try surrogate motherhood, or as Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver, ‘‘Vantage Point”) the head of the surrogate company calls it, ‘‘outsourcing.”

Angie (Poehler) decides she’ll have Kate’s child, but that decision causes problems with her boyfriend Carl (Dax Shepherd, ‘‘Smoother”), forcing Angie to crash with Kate.

Fey has perfected the uptight role and Poheler is like a ball of energy on the screen and you never know what she’ll do next. She keeps Angie unpredictable without being so silly that she’s unrealistic — where most comedies go wrong.

Fey and Poehler are like the modern day Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance (‘‘I Love Lucy”) and their chemistry is a treat to behold. They truly complement each other and when they’re doing a karaoke version of ‘‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” you honestly buy into it.

‘‘30 Rock” is great but why hasn’t some TV exec tried to get Fey and Poehler a sitcom vehicle?

Greg Kinnear (‘‘Feast of Love”) plays Fey’s love interest, Rob, and the two make a very believable couple, albeit one where they constantly try to be more sarcastic than the other. Steve Martin has a great cameo as Kate’s eccentric boss and scores big laughs with his off-kilter performance.

Surprisingly, Fey, the former lead writer for Saturday Night Live and current star⁄writer of ‘‘30 Rock,” doesn’t handle the film’s writing responsibilities.

That’s left in the hands of Michael McCullers, who does double duty as the director in his initial outing behind the camera.

McCullers knows funny — he’s collaborated on the scripts to ‘‘Undercover Brother” and the last two ‘‘Austin Powers” films — and his script here is really funny at times, but I couldn’t help but wonder how a Fey-penned script would have fared.

Not that a guy can’t write a funny movie with female leads, but Fey likely would have avoided some of running jokes and the standard ‘‘movie moments.”

Fey probably would have ditched scenes like the awkward first kiss in a deserted alley or the cliché soul-searching moment as the parties decide how they can make things right with the other.

There’s some unnecessary drama and twists that make the film heavier than the subject matter really needs but in the end it all works out well for everyone like every good comedy should.

The bar for Saturday Night Live TV stars making feature films is admittedly very low but ‘‘Baby Mama” is definitely one of the best. Were it not for ‘‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” this would be a solid lock for the year’s runaway comedy hit. As is, this is yet another very good option for those who want to sit back and enjoy an actually funny comedy.