[Editor's Note: For more reviews of the summer's biggest releases, check out the Daily Loaf Movie Review Index.]
People generally responded positively when I would tell them I was going to see Date Night. "Oh, that preview looked funny," they would say. I never thought so, but I always chalked up the sentiment to built-in goodwill toward stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Both performers are wildly popular on television, and deservedly so. Over the last five years, The Office and 30 Rock have been the gold standard against which all other TV comedies are judged. On the big screen, Carell had a string of hits (including Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine) but his star has faded somewhat lately; Fey is still on the way up after writing 2004's Mean Girls and starring opposite fellow SNL alum Amy Poehler in Baby Mama. Teaming the stars as a married couple on the run during a long night in NYC should have been a home run, which makes it extra dispiriting when Date Night goes horribly wrong.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2010.