Lazy yuks about lazy schmucks. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have crafted fine characters in a raft of past comedies, comic dramas and dramas, but here work rather little to play 39-year-old and 40-year-old boys who live at home, sleep in, watch TV, don’t work and do masturbate; Ferrell’s Brennan with his mother (Mary Steenburgen) and Reilly’s Dale with his dad (Richard Jenkins). When their respective parents wed and blend families under one roof, the step-bros spar, then bond while swordfighting with their piss streams in the toilet. It’s a replay of a tiresome SNL standby: semi-monstrously immature over-aged idiots (emphasis on “id”) who appeal to suburban males fixated on their everlasting not-so-inner adolescence. “It’s a galaxy of this sucks camel dicks,” blurts Ferrell at one point. He asks his therapist if being an adult means he ought to carry around his high-school diploma. Another comic device is adult-acting characters using “fuck” in their expressions of exasperated disbelief at the two boys. Director Adam McKay (“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”) co-wrote the screenplay with Ferrell, and both co-wrote the story with Reilly, who also wrote a song titled “Hairy Balls.” Producer Judd Apatow continues his bulk output. With Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Andrea Savage and Rob Riggle. 95m. (Bill Stamets)
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