The Film
Yes, it's… another pregnancy comedy! Only this one stars Tina Fey, one of the smartest, funniest women ever, so this movie must be ceaselessly clever, right? Sadly, the multi-Emmy-winning Ms. Fey did not write a word of Baby Mama (or perhaps she did, but wisely removed her name from the script?), instead content strictly to star, reducing her insecure/sassy single career gal persona from the beloved 30 Rock to one-note shtick as Kate Holbrook, an insecure/sassy single career gal looking to reproduce. Her doctor explains why she can't and so she seeks a surrogate, a fertile stranger to serve nine months in exchange for a paycheck.
All the clichés of toothless modern comedies are on display: the cool-but-politically-correct job with a wacky/demanding boss, the perfect-but-still-available love interest, a smattering of adorable tykes plus a karaoke bonding scene, naturally. Even a fine supporting actress like Siobhan Fallon Hogan is made "funny" by giving her character a ridiculous speech impediment. Now that's comedy! What saves Baby Mama from being ejected and flung across the home theater for my kids to play with ("Ooo, shiny!") is Amy Poehler as Angie, Kate's white-trash surrogate with a heart of gold. Drawing upon her apparently limitless comic skills--already noticeably absent from Saturday Night Live--Ms. Poehler somehow manages to pull her character back from the brink of caricature scene after scene to deliver almost all of the movie's laughs. If there's one reason to watch, she's it.
Check out Joe Lozito's review of Baby Mama.
The Picture
The transfer is acceptable for the job at hand but this is in no way recommended demo material. There is distinct grain over the picture, sometimes unpleasantly so as cloth has a tendency to twitch and shadowy areas of the1.85:1 frame can be buzzy. The grain can even compromise something as simple yet important as an actor's face. Backgrounds can appear mushy and in one scene a black shirt with small white polka dots almost looks alive, almost like the Venom goo from Spider-Man 3 is taking a nap on a pregnant woman. Ironically, elsewhere the blacks are generally lifeless. Colors are fine, with some subtle manipulation in a sunset scene on a balcony, for example.
The available high-resolution channels of the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track are occasionally used for comedic effect, as in the over-the-top arrival of Angie and her obnoxious husband, the stereo in their Suzuki Samurai booming in the subwoofer while we can hear it approach in the rears. Most of the time however the mix just does a good job of rendering the various real-world environments, adding restrained touches such as traffic outside, crowd voices or microphone feedback in the different speakers. The light, upbeat music by Jeff Richmond (Fey's husband) has a familiar feel, and along with the pop songs is well-integrated into the soundfield.
The Extras
The audio commentary by writer/director Michael McCullers, producer Lorne Michaels, plus stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler is relaxed and fun. This is in addition to a separate Picture-In-Picture video commentary that pulls together cast and crew interviews and some behind-the-scenes footage, sometimes matched to the final scene we are watching. It is not provided for every chapter, and frankly neither the interviews nor the footage are always particularly insightful. We can however select the volume for the P-I-P window, low, medium or high. What surprised me was the wealth of bonus content that is included on the standard DVD edition but not on the Blu-ray, namely a "making of," a Saturday Night Live featurette, deleted scenes and an alternate ending, all of which could have been ported over in SD-quality. What's up with that?
Final Thoughts
Baby Mama is for Fey/Poehler fans, or for women who enjoy watching other women wildly pining away for a bundle of joy. And while I applaud the video editing and the next-gen tech behind the picture-in-picture, I do wish that the disc producers had more interesting content to work with, and that we viewers hadn't been gypped out of the DVD extras.
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Product Details
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