WHEN ARTY MET FARTY (PARENTAL GUIDANCE)

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Last week, I had to pinch myself while scouring the posters in the Lisburn Omniplex.

Could Bette Midler really be starring in a movie rated Certificate U?

Bette Midler? Loud, brash Bette Midler?

Really?

But believe it or not, Midler is one of the leads in a family comedy from 20th Century Fox, 'Parental Guidance', opposite Billy Crystal.

Crystal plays Minor League baseball commentator Artie Decker who is fired from his beloved job as "the voice of the Fresno Grizzlies'.

He returns home to find his wife, Bette Middler's Diane and her friends doing a pole dancing workout and breaks the bad news.

Meanwhile in Atlanta, their daughter Alice (played by Marisa Tomei) and her husband Phil (Tom Everett Scott) are celebrating him being nominated for an award for his computer controlled, voice recognition house.

The only problem for Phil and Alice is that that means at short notice they will have to ask Artie and Diane, who have minimal contact with the family, to look after their three kids - the uptight high achieving only daughter Harper (Bailee Madison), the stammering, lacking in confidence middle child Turner (Joshua Rush) and the free spirited, youngest son with an imaginary kangaroo friend,  Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf).

The very thought of Artie and Diane in charge breaks Alice out in a rash but she relents when her husband badgers her into asking his in-laws to look after the children.

Cue loads of "jokes" about the different parenting styles of Alice (too uptight, too controlling, soft on discipline) and her parents.

Artie is a bit of a techno-clutz. So there loads of "jokes" at his expense too on that score.

Just like Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut 'Quartet', Andy Fickman's movie is undemanding and underwhelming.

Like 'Nativity 2', there are lots of toilet jokes - early on, Barker cheekily names his grandfather Farty and squirts water on the crotch of his trousers, shouting: "Farty wet his pants!" 

There is also a pooing scene in a men's lavatory.

Fickman may be aiming for a 'Meet the Fockers' demographic but even by that movie's cheap and lazy standards, 'Parental Guidance' comes up short.

The bulk of the gags and plot are so predictable that you can hear them wheezing in advance and the direction is just dull and formulaic.

We have the inevitable battle of wits as the Deckers and their wiseass grandkids try to outsmart each other at the start of the movie, only to fall for each other's charms.

Saddled with a dull script, Crystal and Midler go through the motions - although the former does manage to squeeze out the odd laugh.

The real disappointment, however, is Marisa Tomei who has little opportunity to shine in a one dimensional role. Given the right material ('Untamed Heart', !In The Bedroom', 'The Wrestler', even 'My Cousin Vinny') we know she is capable of much, much better. But here, she is actually quite irritating.

And the kids also grate. 

If you contrast them with the five children on ABC's sitcom 'Modern Family', there's no contest. 

Having endured 'Nativity 2', 'Parental Guidance' seems an improvement. But that's a bit like saying I'd rather have a cold than the Norovirus - of course, I would.

Just don't encourage Hollywood to make 'Parental Guidance 2'. It doesn't deserve a sequel. 

(This review appeared originally on the EamonnMallie.com website in January 2013)

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