Prime Time: Driver's Ed (2026)

There comes a time when someone squanders enough of your goodwill that you stop mentioning their past glories. Although he's had at least one other very enjoyable movie in the past few years (Champions), that time has come for Bobby Farrelly. I'm not saying that Driver's Ed is a terrible film. It's just so generic and uninspired that it doesn't feel like it was made by someone with some modern classics in their filmography.

Sam Nivola plays Jeremy, a young man struggling with what seems to be the end of his now-long-distance relationship with Samantha (Lilah Pate). After mulling things over, he decides that a road trip is in order. Unfortunately, that road trip involves him commandeering the car used for his driver's ed class, which means that Evie (Sophie Telegadis), Aparna (Mohana Krishnan), and Yoshi (Aidan Laprete) are also taken along for the journey.

It's surprisingly hard to write a review for Driver's Ed. It's one of the most inoffensive and forgettable comedies that I've seen in recent years. Part of me almost wishes that it was terrible. At least I would work up some energy to shred it. It's not terrible though. It's not great either. It is, ironically, the most middle of the road comedy you could possibly imagine, unable to deviate from the plot beats that most viewers would be able to predict from the opening scene. It flops as a teen comedy, it doesn't make enough time for the more fun older cast members (Kumail Nanjiani and Molly Shannon, playing two people the movie should have really focused on instead), and there's not one memorable set-piece, or one big laugh, in the entire runtime.

I'd have to put most of the blame on writer Thomas Moffett, although he at least attempts to add some depth to a couple of the main supporting characters, but Farrelly should have worked harder to fill the film with enough extra treats to make up for the weak screenplay.

The acting isn't bad, so it has that going for it. Nivola is a decent young lead, and Telegadis works well alongside him. Both Krishnan and Laprete also work well together, especially as the former ends up becoming a bit more comfortable in herself. Pate is perfectly fine, but she's really just required to be the destination for a group of characters who end up on a very winding and valuable journey. Aside from the comedy stars already mentioned, Tim Baltz and Bri Giger are the other two main adults to join in with the fun, and their scenes are almost as welcome as those featuring Nanjiani and Shannon. 

There are many worse choices you could make when picking a mild distraction from the streaming services available to you, but I cannot think of anyone who will watch this and then remember it fondly within a few months. It's frustratingly bland and tame, and, most importantly, it's disappointingly lacking in the comedy department.

4/10

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Prime Time: Balls Up (2026)

If you want to know the level of care and thought that went into writing and directing Balls Up then you should know that it's set during a football world cup tournament in Brazil. In 2025. I'm no great follower of sports, and certainly no football expert, but even I know that the World Cup has taken place every four years since it began back in 1930 (with the exception of a couple of tournaments that were not played due to a little historical event known as WWII). 

Directed by Peter "How Far The Mighty Can Fall" Farrelly, and written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (two men who have proven that they could be funny on past projects), this tall tale concerns Brad (Mark Wahlberg) and Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser), two men who are aiming to make their latest prophylactic (one that covers both testicles as well as the shaft of the penis) the only one to be features in the World Cup final. Things don't go to plan though, and Brad and Elijah soon end up stumbling from one mess to another, seemingly pursued by every Brazilian football fan.

I never thought I would say this, but I think Mark Wahlberg needs a Ted 3 to save him before he hits any new lows that he won't be able to come back from. It's almost as if he's become so enslaved by the streaming services, and their paychecks (of course), that he has forgotten how the movie business works when it comes to stars maintaining their value. I could be very wrong, but right now . . . if Wahlberg was a stock market commodity then people would be selling their shares before the inevitable spiral and crash. Hauser is also devaluing himself, but he at least has a fairly varied selection of features that offer him a chance to hold on to enough goodwill until another upswing saves him from potential obscurity. 

It's not just the leads who dive into this bog of eternal stench, however, and both Benjamin Bratt and Sacha Baron Cohen should have a stern word with their agents. At least Bratt isn't onscreen for much of the runtime. Cohen is a big presence in the middle third, sadly, and does nothing to stop it from being a fairly laugh-free zone. Molly Shannon made me smile a few times, there's an amusing voice cameo from Larry David, but Eric André, Chelsey Crisp, Jackson Tozer, Daniela Melchior, and Eva De Dominici are sorely mistreated by a screenplay that's stinkier than Pepe Le Pew in self-defence mode.

If you're after some simple laughs then the opening scenes may give you some hope. There's nothing smart or gut-busting there, but at least one or two moments are entertainingly silly without having to feel connected to a whole wide world outwith the workplace environment. I'd advise you not to let that sense of hope fool you though. Sometimes, yes, hope can set you free, but it can just as easily set you up for a plunge into mirth-free darkness and pain. And that is what you get here. 

I was going to rate this a 2/10 for the opening scenes, but I decided to generously bump it up by one because I admit that I chuckled when Wahlberg and Hauser were shown performing a karaoke version of "Somebody That I Used To Know". Others may not be so easily amused, although there's a chance that my reaction was akin to someone being given a sip of water after three days wandering through a desert. Consider yourself duly warned.

3/10

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Fun Mom Dinner (2017)

I am trying to figure out why I disliked Fun Mom Dinner so much. It's not that it isn't funny enough for a comedy, although it isn't. It's not that the cast are largely wasted, although they are. And it's certainly not that the whole thing ambles along towards a hugely predictable third act, although it does. I think it is all of these things and more. Mainly, it feels like someone saw the success of Bad Moms and tried to copy that "formula", and they failed.

The plot revolves around four mothers. They are stuck-in-a-rut Emily (Katie Aselton), single oversharer Jamie (Molly Shannon), grumpy Kate (Toni Collette), and a woman who can be relied on to run everything with military precision when need be, named Melanie (Bridget Everett). They all end up on a big night out while their kids are being looked after, drink flows, weed is smoked, and confessions are delivered in ways that allow the women to view each other in a different light. Basically. There are a few sub-plots (one involving two of the hubbies - Adam Scott and Rob Huebel - who are watching the kids, one involving a barman - Adam Levine - who takes a liking to Emily, and one involving a sweet guy played by Paul Rust) but they all feel clumsily inserted, and all continue to serve the lessons being learned about mothers still being women too.

Director Alethea Jones doesn't really do much wrong here, in terms of the technical stuff. The pacing is fine, the camera points in the right direction, and there are a couple of familiar pop hits in the soundtrack (although one of the better songs is used for a godawful karaoke scene). One of the biggest problems that the film has is the cast.

It's not that Aselton is bad, she's just not a very appealing lead. She is far too bland to bother about, as is the character she plays. Collette deserves much better than the material she's given here, as does the usually wonderful Shannon. Everett gets some of the best moments, and she fares the best out of the central quartet, perhaps because I wasn't familiar with her before this. Strangely, the male cast members fare a lot better, with Scott and Huebel a lot of fun, and Levine and Rust both managing to come across as nice guys with different ways of connecting with the women.

Which brings us to the other big problem here. The script. Written by Julie Rudd (and at least her husband, Paul, stops by to steal one scene), there just isn't enough here that works, largely due to the lack of decent laughs. The rest of the problems would be easier to forgive if the film remembered that it was a comedy. Almost every mainstream comedy has the standard chain of events leading to the group bonding, the pop music to either bring joy to the main characters or accompany a fun montage, and a clash of two very different demographics (as in the scene in which these mothers inadvertently crash a teen party). Those things are all fine and enjoyable enough, if done well.

Sure, if you find this available for free then you may want to give it a watch. But I am willing to bet that by the time the end credits roll you just wish that you'd rewatched Bad Moms. Not that this film was ever aiming to be that film, I can imagine someone telling me, . . . but we all know that it was.

3/10

Here's a disc available in America, if you really want it.

Osmosis Jones (2001)

Osmosis Jones is a standard tale of a reckless cop (Chris Rock) paired up with someone who is a stickler for the rules (David Hyde Pierce). There's an evil villain (Laurence Fishburne) with a plan to go down in history. And lives are at stake, although it is mainly just the one life (belonging to an unhealthy Bill Murray). The big difference here is that the cop is Osmosis Jones, paired up with a medicine named Drix, and the villain is a deadly virus with symptoms that may not be fully recognised until it is too late. And all of this is taking place inside the body of Murray, in animated form.

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Osmosis Jones is a fun blend of animation and live action (most of the grosser moments involve Murray either helping the virus along or showing some nasty side-effects from the battles raging within him) that is helped by a great voice cast and a lot of wonderful little sight gags, even if they are all fairly obvious puns. It's also quite tame for a film that comes with their names attached, which seems more likely to be down to the script by Marc Hyman. It focuses more on transposing the tropes of a buddy cop action comedy into the setting of a human body than it does on the many potential opportunities for toilet humour.

The animation may be a bit rough around the edges but it does everything it has to do, and that includes some fun scenes that have our main characters depicted in their animated form while the background is the very live Murray (who is also joined onscreen by Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott, and Elena Franklin, who portrays his frustrated daughter).

Rock does very well in the kinda-lead role, his sharp, fast delivery working brilliantly alongside the smooth and deliberate tone of Pierce. Fishburne, voice matched by the character design, oozes threat and menace with his every line, and there are fun supporting turns from William Shatner, Brandy Norwood, and Ron Howard.

The idea of our bodies being regulated and looked after by small humanoid entites isn't a new one (and it's one that can keep delivering great entertainment when done the right way, as it was with Inside Out) and nothing here feels too original, which is probably the biggest problem that the film has. Overlook the sense of the familiar, however, and you will find an absolute little cracker of a film, one that was unjustly neglected when first released, and remains sorely overlooked nowadays. Seek it out, give it your time, and you may well find that you enjoy it almost as much as I do.

8/10

Osmosis Jones can be absorbed in exchange for cash here.
Americans can get it streaming into their homes here (but on disc, not just . . . streaming).