It isn't even the funniest movie I've seen this year. But it sure made me laugh.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 30, 2019

The potentially gooey conclusion is leavened with cynical irreverence.

| Mar 30, 2019

The shouty variety of manchild comedy that Ferrell has cribbed from Jerry Lewis divides movie fans intensely. Here's the one we should put in the time capsule.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Unremittingly juvenile and irredeemably funny.

| Oct 18, 2008

On its own terms, Step Brothers is hilarious. But it's a shame that the filmmakers didn't have more faith in the audience. Why resort to gross-out tactics when your premise is strong enough to allow for a more sophisticated approach?

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 18, 2008

Step Brothers is the latest movie from Adam McKay, the director of Anchorman and Talladega Nights, and, like those two fine entertainments, it rejoices in making a virtue of its own rampant stupidity.

| Oct 18, 2008

It's clear that much of what is on the screen is there because writers Ferrell and McKay found it funny, not because it serves the plot.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 3, 2008

One thing spoils the mood: for all the joy that Ferrell and Reilly take in brawling or whimpering like two-year-olds, immaturity is still seen as something to be overcome.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 19, 2008

Between occasional guffaws and more frequent hand-over-mouth, oh-my-God moments, I started to think about where American comedy has come from and where it's going.

| Sep 19, 2008

Dude, the film so totally happens to be great.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2008

Funny as it is watching balding middle-aged men clowning like eight-year-olds - particularly when it involves Ferrell man-crying - it soon starts to grow old when that's all the script has to offer.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2008

For a while their stupid rivalry, insults and petulant displays of outrage are funny, but like the talented child who won't be quiet for a second, the act eventually begins to grate.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2008

Adam McKay's movie hits inspiration often enough to overcome its pedestrian plot, and the sight of Ferrell bawling like a baby somehow gets funnier each time.

| Aug 29, 2008

This goofy comedy is a DVD rental only.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2008

Digestible if you can stomach the crude nostalgia. A disaster if you expect art and crafts.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2008

It's no Anchorman, but it's several steps in the right direction.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 29, 2008

Step Brothers signals another era of American comedy: It's the sort of thing that will assist future scholars in crafting histories of 21st-century stupidity.

| Jul 30, 2008

Don't watch it on an airplane, don't check it out on cable, don't walk past the bargain basement bin where it's been sold.

Full Review | Jul 28, 2008

Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay founded the acclaimed "Funny or Die" website. On this movie, I vote "die."

| Original Score: D | Jul 26, 2008

There's a good subject for satire here, the extended adolescence of American kids. But satire presupposes maturity, or at least some perspective.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2008