Shun these ‘Brothers’

There is a popular piece of advice that parents tell each other to qualm fears about horrifically poor behavior in children. One says to the other, “They’ll grow out of it.” Such is life; as we grow older, we grow wiser and, hopefully, get the hell away from our parents. Unfortunately, for Nancy Huff (Mary Steenburgen, “The Brave One”) and Dr. Robert Doback (Richard Jenkins, “The Kingdom”), their sons refuse to move out and most certainly refuse to grow up.

Nancy and Robert meet at a convention where he wins her over by declaring he would like to stick his head between her breasts. (Just a hint, boys: This line will probably not go over as well in real life.) The one glitch in the blessed union? Both have adult sons, Brennan (Will Ferrell, “Semi-Pro”) and Dale (John C. Reilly, “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”), squatting at home. The supposedly hilarious solution to the problem? Move in together and have the boys bunk in the same room. The paper-thin plot proves point that filmmakers assume people will come to the theater just because Judd Apatow’s name is somewhere in the credits (not to see Ferrell do more of his asinine stunts — that’s old hat by this point.)

“Step Brothers” relies heavily on Ferrell and Reilly to produce laughs, but even typically funny comedians like these two can’t change a turd into gold. This is the kind of movie that uses an actor wearing a Chewbacca mask as a gag and assumes the target audience will find that particular gag equally funny three times in the span of 95 minutes. Other comedic “gems” include school children making the 40-year-old men lick dog poop and what is probably the saddest excuse for fake testicles ever seen onscreen.

What made past “Frat Pack” films appealing was the tongue-in-cheek humor, the asides or cultural references that made the movies more than just comedies with gross-out gags and swear words. Instead, the makers of “Step Brothers” seem to see their R-rating as an open invitation to have the characters drop F-bombs.

It’s not only the humor that is dumbed down, but the acting as well. Ferrell’s been milking his man-child character since the days of “Zoolander,” but as the years pass — and Ferrell’s girth continues to grow — the whole charade becomes a lot less funny and even embarrassing.

Reilly and Company also do little to add any sort of semblance of clever humor to the film. Adam Scott (TV’s “Tell Me You Love Me”), as Breenan’s high-achieving younger brother, is a less entertaining version of Bradley Cooper’s character in “Wedding Crashers” — complete with the ass-kissing friends — but highly forgettable and without any real reason to be in the story other than to add a little more obnoxiousness to the screen. Although the character is lame, at least Scott commits. And the only constructive thing to be said about Steenburgen is that, if she were going for a completely wooden and unemotional rendition of Nancy, then she succeeded. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear she vetoed that whole “line-memorizing thing” and went instead for reading off cue cards for the entirety of filming.

At one point in the film, Breenan remarks to Dale, “Imagine if we had these at twelve,” while playing with night-vision goggles. Dale’s response? “It’s even better we have them when we’re forty!” Perhaps it’s time these characters learned that not everything gets better with age. Watching grown men battle over drum sets and parental love is just not that clever or even entertaining. If that’s not enough to deter one from seeing “Step Brothers,” let it be stated that someone actually hired Horatio Sanz (TV’s “Saturday Night Live”) for a cameo. If that’s not a sign of a sinking ship, I don’t know what is.