Step Brothers is a silly comedy from Adam McKay, who also brought us The Other Guys, which I really quite liked. Shame about this one.

The film stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as 40 year old children who become step-in-laws when their lone parents marry.

The first thing I wanted to know was why are these two so childish? They act kind of adult for the first 10 minutes, but then they become complete infants. The only very loose reason for their behaviour is given during a bit of pillow talk by the parents. Ferrell's mum says that his father left when he was young, and there was also something about singing in a talent show where people chanted mangina at him, and Reilly's dad says that because his mother died, that he now has some sense of entitlement. Both don't make much sense to me. Neither the death of your mother, nor people chanting mangina at you would make you want bunk beds.

At first, the step brothers hate each other, but this is resolved when Reilly punches Ferrall's older brother. I don't understand how this brings them together though. Sure, it might make Ferrall like Reilly more, but I was to understand that the feeling was mutual, so the resentment should still be there from Reilly.

The mum and dad characters are quite inconsistent. They switch between being pissed off at them for acting so childishly when they're 40, and playing along and threatening to ground them and even spanking them. I'm unsure if we're supposed to feel sorry for them or not.

Some of the set pieces in the film are a bit too ridiculous, such as them being bullied by a gang of kids and forced to lick dog poop. They also have a tree house. Really?? I mean, it is basically a porn archive, but still. It's like someone with OCD has grouped sources of wood.

There's a scene where Reilly is basically being raped in a public toilet, and at one point he says, with his eyes rolled back in his head "Something's going to happen!". This is weird because he clearly knows what an orgasm is since the aforementioned tree house was referred to as "a masturbation time machine". So not only are the characters in the film inexplicably childish, but they've thrown consistency to the wind in the quest for infancy as well.

The childishness reaches its lowest point during the sleepwalking scenes. These were unfunny and embarrassing to watch. They looked like they'd been infected with the holy spirit for a few minutes.

After a big blow-out with the parents, they magically grow up. This happens so quickly and easily that it almost seems like they were just acting childish for shits and giggles. And that would be paradoxical. Probably not the case in a film with a 20 second fart.

They both go and get jobs and Ferrell ends up working for his big brother. He has to organise a big event and it has to run smoothly. I did really enjoy the intentionally ambiguous nature of the event, and the way it was constantly just referred to as "The Catalina Wine Mixer", and built up to be very important for no reason. However, the farcical nature of the event detracted from some of the big and more serious plot twists that happen during it.

The resolution of the film is a bit botched. They get up on stage and sing a song and then their parents tell them they don't like them acting so adult and to be kids again. Didn't make much sense to me. Apparently the dad missed being thrown down the stairs?

Overall, the film did make me laugh. It has some very funny lines, or Ferrellisms as I like to call them, but they are mixed in with some really quite bad attempts at comedy too. Add to this the very loose premise of the film and lack of believability of the characters, and it becomes kind of obvious that this was more of a concept than a story.

It's ok, but Dumb and Dumber did it much better.