If anything, what makes “The Babymakers” such a tolerable bad movie is that Olivia Munn is gorgeous. Granted, she’s yet another “I’m hot but I’m edgy and funny, too!” actress in Hollywood, but in “The Babymakers” she mostly plays it straight. Munn is a beautiful and often sexy woman who glows in this film, and she serves her purpose as the woman character Tommy Mackland is desperate to please. Hey, if I were married to character Audrey, I’d be dipping my testicles on a pot of stew, too. Munn is mainly a straight man for the comedy, who spends most of the movie longing for a baby of her own, and tries to remain faithful to Tommy, who is a well meaning and mild mannered man with a lot to offer. Sure, he’s another comedy loser, but he has a good job, and a lot of courage when it comes to standing his ground. He’s a man you can respect, and somewhat pity. Because I guess pity is funny and respect is not.
Sadly, that’s just about where your attention will end, since Jay Chandrasekhar is about the worst director for this kind of film. “The Babymakers” wants to appeal to the fan base of Broken Lizard desperately, but also wants to service the audience that loves movies from Garry Marshall or Rob Reiner. Tommy and Audrey’s relationship is cute, and funny, but most times the film can never really decide if it wants to be low brow comedy, or relationship comedy. Director Chandrasekhar is so confused that most of the jokes are poorly injected and the plot elements absolutely forced. The opening scene of a crying baby is so badly staged you’d almost think Tommy and Audrey are being neglectful parents, and a montage of hits to the groin is so eager for a laugh but fails to muster even the slightest chuckle since hits to the groin is the lowest form of comedy imaginable next to spit takes. Yes, we get it, he’s been hit in his testicles quite often. We don’t need a minute long montage about it.
Worse, there’s a pitiful scene in a sperm clinic where Tommy attempts to masturbate to girl on girl porn and freaks out when he discovers the two girls are about to violate a horse. So, the remote malfunctions, Tommy fumbles for the television and the entire clinic loses its power. It’s so zealous to draw a laugh from its viewers, it can’t really see how unfunny and cheesy it is. It’s a scene so irritating, not even the most dismal sitcom would bother writing it in to an episode. Beyond that most of the character actions don’t make sense. Tommy is now diagnosed with a low sperm count thanks to groin injuries, but Tommy knows it’s untrue. Why? Because before he and Audrey were married, he deposited twenty sperm samples for eighty five dollars a pop at a local sperm bank and never told her. Why didn’t he tell her, again? And why does the movie try to make us dislike him for using that sperm money for a wedding ring for Audrey? Why does Audrey feel hurt by Tommy’s trips to the sperm bank, again? Should we hate Tommy for earning money to give Audrey a wedding ring?
“The Babymakers” delivers sex and masturbation jokes at an almost rapid fire pace, almost like throwing wet tissue at a wall to see which sticks and which won’t. There’s odd humor about masturbating to cantaloupes, a lot of gags about anal sex, any excuse to feature gratuitous nudity (since Munn is never nude in the movie), and so many jokes and poorly placed one-liners based on and around the groin. None of it is ever really funny, and the jokes that do plant the occasional giggle feel accidental. Chandrasekhar and his comedy troop Broken Lizard often fancy themselves as ground breakers, a team who operate by their own standards of comedy, and “The Babymakers” just feels like a director playing by the rule book while trying to provide his own brand of storytelling. It bombs. If Chandrasekhar was really concerned with being original, he wouldn’t have included the perfunctory happy ending. Instead he’d have left Danny and Audrey still hoping for a child, but content in their relationship and devotion toward one another. Especially since Danny was willing to risk jail time to have a baby with his wife. But then, no matter how subversive or indie you are, Hollywood has to be Hollywood.
Featured in the Blu-Ray is a five minute featurette on the making of the film including interviews with the cast and crew, character discussion, and a lot of self-congratulatory looks back on the cast of the film. The nineteen minute segments on interviews with the cast and crew is just more of the same expansion on the plot and thoughts on working on the film. It’s nothing really interesting. The ten minute Behind the Scenes featurette shows on set footage and production. While Olivia Munn is a beauty and thankfully very downbeat in her performance, “The Babymakers” is yet another dud from the man behind the Broken Lizard comedy troupe who can never decide if he’s making a couple’s movie or a frat boy movie. He aims for both and misses the mark with clunky dialogue, bad comedy, and ridiculous gags that are dead on arrival.