Touches You

An Exercise In Nonsense

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This was hard to watch. The characters are a collection of stereotypes, the story has probably been written in 3 days and not to mention the jokes. I spent the entire movie wondering what Kathryn Hahn was doing. And they've made a second one...

Amy's life is too busy: her useless husband doesn't help, her daughter has demanding school activities, her annoying boss has turned her part-time job into full-time without paying her for it so, when PTA tyrant Gwendolyn pressures her over cakes at the Bake Sale, Amy cracks and, accompanied by sex-mad Karla and timid and downtrodden Kiki, they decide to leave the demands of motherhood behind in favour of more immediately satisfying activities.This film - according to its publicity - wants to be a female version of The Hangover. But Bridesmaids already did that and, besides, Bad Moms turns out to be about moms who aren't really bad at all, they're just moms.Mila Kunis, as protagonist Amy, plays straight man to Katherine Hahn's very funny horny mom Karla, and Kristen Bell's meek and slapstick-prone Kiki. Christina Applegate plays Machiavellian PTA mastermind Gwendolyn very well despite having one of the least credible changes of heart I can ever recall in a film.There aren't many belly laughs, but I chuckled often. The discussion about circumcised vs uncircumcised amused me, even though I am not the target audience (I'm not sure who the target audience actually was: this sort of raunchy comedy usually seems aimed at the twenteens, but the material here would strike a chord with mothers of school-age children. The two groups aren't mutually exclusive, but they don't have huge crossover either).There is some heart, too, albeit clearly engineered precisely to tug at the heartstrings - Karla's final exchange with her son being a case in point. And the interviews over the closing credits between the 6 main female actors and their real-life mothers were great.Comedy movies - well, all films, really - are very personal, and what might appeal to one person doesn't necessarily appeal to another. Much US opinion is against this on the grounds that it's anti-male. I didn't give that a thought, and quite liked it.

There's nothing bad to say about Bad Moms that hasn't already been said. So all I'm going to say is STX Entertainment, if you ever squeeze out a turd like this one that's too big to flush down the toilet, shove it back up where it came from. One of the worst movies I've ever watched.

'Bad Moms' (not sure why the spelling wasn't changed in Australia, like 'Bad Neighbours' was - lazy work, distributors) is a straightforward comedy, delivering what it should - easy laughs with not much seriousness. The irony is that the film was written and directed by two men... Amy (Kunis - the standout star here) is a mother of two, juggling all the chores and school drop-offs with a job and a disintegrating marriage. She semi-loses it when Gwendolyn (Applegate), the uptight PTA president, pushes her too far and challenges for the PTA leadership so all the mums have less stress and things to worry about in their lives.Kiki (Bell) is good as the repressed mother of four, but single mum Carla (Hahn) really steals the show, with her attitude and wisecracks. The montage when they go to the shops on their first night out together is gold. The other cast get some time, but not much, so it's really these three vs Applegate. The kids are good, but don't have much impact either.The soundtrack's crap, but there's a message in here somewhere. It's not that raunchy or dirty - except for a few moments - but does have way more laughs than I was expecting. Kunis is funny, sensitive, looks exceptional and carries the film. The end credits have the stars and their real-life mums reminiscing on couches - surprisingly touching.