Bromates

While this movie has good overall production and actors, the script is too weak to deliver anything but bland scenes we've seen before and humor written by an elderly producer that has "always worked," which of course makes it drum-roll unfunny in 2022. The story is the same as always too, beginning with the Odd Couple scenario, but less funny, moving on to the Bad Boys routine, but tame and mundane, then finally the CW version of character growth ("I realize now I only wanted to be with ____ because I _____") offering nothing new. Even Mr. Dogg's appearance didn't save this trite muck, so I'd definitely avoid this movie if you have a life.

Pushover Sid (Josh Brener) gets dumped by his social influencer girlfriend. His friend Jonesie (Lil Rel Howery) invites him to be roommates, or more than roommates. He wants them to be Bromates.

In theory, these two comedic actors should fit well together. One is a weak pushover and the other is an outrageous adventurer. Lil Rel is a matter of taste and I don't always like his characters. This one is more unlike than like. I don't really understand all the hot ladies going for Sid. I don't care about the other two friends although the gay one is almost funny. This should have been Harold and Kumar if the two leads would go on a meaningless adventure.

What happens when you get a gay guy, a black guy, a brown guy and a typical millennial beta wimp all together (no really, this wishful diversity party actually exists in Hollywood and precisely nowhere else in the world) and make a movie based on stereotypes with no real evident talent in the writing, character or plot department.

In fairness, the black guy is quite funny on occasion but clearly he only gets work because Kevin Hart is too expensive these days.

So we are left with a gross out comedy in the style of the Farrelly brothers, but without the talent.

Today's review was brought to you by the word : implausible.

There was a few funny scenes here and there so I won't say it was all terrible. The cast did a good job with terrible writing and production.... Even the set designs were very bad. Other than that the storyline was all over the place and seemed like there was no real flow. Although the cameos were cool they seemed odd and forced. The characters just had no fit in the story at all. The acting was not as bad as the writing but it wasn't great either. It was on par for other B movies in this genre. Overall it's worth watching if you have nothing else to watch and if you can get thru it once I guarantee you will never speak or think of this movie ever again.

My expectations for Bromates were admittedly low (somewhat non-existent) and typically, that would afford a movie a few extra stars. I assumed it would follow the same formula as movies like Oldschool, The Hangover, or The 40 Year Old Virgin - you know, bro-comedies. Frankly, if Bromates had half the charm of one of the second rate movies of that genre (ie Neighbors) - I would have gone about my business and had no reason to write a review.

That said, I found the writing to be so formulaic, so lackluster, so void of any original characters, situations, relationships, hardships, etc that I felt compelled to write on it. I laughed zero times. I predicted all the punchlines. I found the friendships to be so unbelievable that it distracted from any potentially funny interactions.

In DVD form, you'd find this movie in the bargain-bin at Walgreens between a copy of Free Willy 2 and a box of Mike and Ike's that someone discarded right before checkout. The writers should have to pay to have their names expunged from the IMDB page.