Sisters (2015)

** out of ****

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are clearly the female version of Ackroyd and Belushi, working off each other often to hysterical effect. Unfortunately they also fall into the same trap of thinking that everything they do is funny, resulting in uneven outcomes.

But the films certainly starts out funny. Sisters Maura and Kate (Poehler and Fey) are told by their parents (Dianne Wiest and James Brolin) that they're selling the house the girls grew up in. Maura is a perpetual do-gooder who is too concerned with the happiness of others to have found any for herself, and Kate is a lifelong party girl who has never accomplished anything. Both long for the “good old days” of growing up in that house, and try to discourage their parents from selling. When they are unsuccessful they decide instead to have the ultimate blowout, recreating high school parties of the 80s/90s for one last night of immature fun.

There are a lot of things in “Sisters” that are funny, including some hilarious exchanges of dialogue and some crude humour reminiscent of “The Hangover”. Unfortunately it can't maintain the momentum throughout and by the end has lost any real semblance of being funny. Falling into the more traditional “chick flick” style, the ending becomes more about the girls finding happiness – Kate with her daughter and Maura with a boyfriend. Yawn.

It all starts to come apart when the party picks up steam. Up until then it is really funny and has some moments of cringing embarrassment. But as soon as it starts to feel like “Weird Science”, it lost me altogether and by the end I didn't care about these characters at all. Devolved into stupidity, really.

The two star rating has more to do with how much I enjoyed the first half of the movie, but it just isn't a very good film in the final analysis. Fey and Poehler are enjoyable, and Weist and Brolin are often really funny, but when it's all said and done it's just another forgettable chickflick with some quotable moments.