The Babymakers

It's the age-old tale of a man, a woman, and their inability to conceive leading to a sperm bank robbery. In raunchy rom-coms such as this, people don't ever think rationally. That would take the "com" out of the whole thing, right? Because in order to have the laughs, wacky hijinks must ensue, and in order for wacky hijinks to ensue, you must have a cast of characters that lack any sort of common sense.

Tommy (Paul Schneider) and his wife Audrey (Olivia Munn) can't have kids. It's the way their biology works out. Well, more specifically it's the way his biology works out. Even after a doctor visit Tommy is convinced that it isn't his sperm that's the problem. Way back before he was married Tommy donated to his local sperm bank for some extra cash. "They test the shit out of that to make sure it's good sperm!" Tommy declares. The doctor provides a short explanation as to why Tommy's count may have dipped. Sudden impacts to the groin could do it, the doctor says. Then we see a montage of Tommy getting repeatedly hit in the junk by various objects. That's the quick and painful way the movie explains away Tommy going from fertile to barren – a string of 'America's Funniest Home Videos' groin shots.

'The Babymakers' wants so bad to be considered among the top of the R-rated romantic comedies, but it's trying way too hard (and Olivia Munn is insufferable, but you probably already knew that). Munn and Schneider have zero chemistry. It's hard to believe these two could even pull off a cordial date together let alone raise a kid with each other.

Because all screwball comedies need some kind of wacky situation, Tommy and his band of not-so-bright friends plan to go rob the sperm bank where Tommy donated, hoping to get back some of his potent sperm. It just so happens there's one vial of Tommy still left, but it's already been claimed and if they don't get their hands on it first Tommy's sperm will be lost forever.

If this is beginning to sound boring that's because it is. 'The Babymakers' never approaches the quality of other R-rated comedies like 'Knocked Up' or 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall.' It wallows in jokes about bodily fluids. Its sight gags will actually make you gag (example: imagine a man who is the equivalent of a bull in a china shop let loose inside the storage room of a sperm bank full of glass storage containers). There's nothing funny about them. They're desperate for laughs here and they'll do just about anything to get them.

It doesn't matter though because you've probably never heard of the movie until now. I don't really like to trot out box office results in order to prove a point, but I couldn't help it here. 'The Babymakers' had a very limited theatrical opening and grossed exactly $7,889. That's it. There's a reason for that, this "comedy" directed by Jay Chandrasekhar isn't any good!

The gross-out moments emphasize the "gross," but then the movie fails to connect on an emotional level to make all those disgusting, unfunny gags worth it. There isn't anything in this movie worthy of wasting your time on, not even if you think Olivia Munn is ridiculously good looking (you know who you are). Even though this is rated R they still go to painstaking lengths to strategically hide all her naked parts in various scenes. So, if you were at least hoping for a few quick peeks, you'll even be disappointed on that front.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

This Millennium Entertainment titles comes on a 25GB Blu-ray Disc. It's packaged in a standard Blu-ray keepcase and is coded for Region A use.

'The Babymakers' 1080p presentation is alright. Was it spectacular? Not really. It had a couple noticeable banding and aliasing issues packed in it. Besides those few technical abnormalities, the movie looks just fine, exhibiting natural skin tones, well-defined facial and textual details, and above average clarity. Shadows seemed a bit on the anemic side though as did blacks. Blacks approached inky status, but never fully committed. Many of the low-light scenes, like the robbery sequence, feature some crushing. Depth is hampered by the somewhat dimensionless blacks. Overall, it's nothing that you'll scream about and you'll probably forget about it right after watching the movie, but while it's going it looks decent enough.

The audio track is the same way. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is heavy on the dialogue and light on just about everything else. The dialogue is always clearly intelligible through the front and center channels. I did think directionality felt a bit forced. There are more than a few scenes where voices are thrown to the front channels even though the character is just slightly off to one side of the scene, but still visible. Rear channel leave a lot to be desired. There aren't too many opportunities for real engulfing surround sound, however the few scenes that could benefit – a trip to the driving range, a birthday party, running around city streets trying to get away from cops – all suffer from subdued rear involvement. This audio presentation gets you through the movie and nothing more.

• Cast and Crew Interviews (HD, 19 min.)— A very boring EPK featurette that features most of the cast talking about their roles, characters, and so on.
• Featurette (HD, 5 min.) — A clip-heavy EPK featurette that shows many of the interviews that you just saw in the featurette above.
• Behind the Scenes (HD, 11 min.) — Just some behind the scenes footage here without commentary or any explanation of why it was included or what people are doing. Like someone just took along a camera and shot random happenings on set with no real rhyme or reason.

There isn't anything in 'The Babymakers' that is worthy of being described as comedy. It's a laugh-less, soulless movie that thinks humorless gross-out gags are going to make people laugh because they're gross. It's a sorry excuse for a movie and shouldn't be viewed by anyone, ever. With average video and audio presentations you have even more reason to skip this title and pretend it never existed. Jay Chandrasekhar strikes again. One to avoid.