Unlike “Trainwreck” from the summer, “Sisters” focuses a lot less on deep, moving plot and focuses far more on making the audience laugh with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s insatiable chemistry.
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Sisters won’t be the first time Fey and Poehler have played, well, sisters.
But hear me out…Fey and Poehler, while great, don’t steal the show. Fey is incredibly amusing and talented, but it’s hard to buy her as a slacker; it feels at times as though she’s playing a smart person’s parody of the girl who peaked at 17.
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Off the bat, “Sisters” is the most unfortunate film of the year. Kate is a single mom out of touch with her daughter (Madison Davenport), unable to keep a nail salon job and broke. When their parents announce that they’re selling the Orlando house where the sisters grew up, they head home to clear out their things. Going home to clean out their shared bedroom is their chance. On a trip to buy booze and fire hydrants, Kate and Maura bump into childhood foe Brinda, played by the inimitable Maya Rudolph, who milks every last drop of absurdity out of the role. Cena is the only one not under the false impression that louder is funnier. Bobby Moynihan shows up as a dude whose idea of humor is endlessly quoting movies (much like at least 42 percent of actual dudes), and the gag starts to get stale after one too many purple-faced Robert De Niro imitations. Ike Barinholtz is ideal as a James, a neighborhood “sweaty guy” whom Maura and Kate catcall from their auto based exclusively on his aforementioned sweatiness. Director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) and screenwriter Paula Pell throw jokes in a bucket and splash them on the wall to see what sticks. Sisters flips a tested formula to become the New Coke of comedy, looking familiar and bubbly on the surface, disposable before it’s finished.
