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My favorite thing about Step Brothers was how short it was. While that might make it seem like I hated the thing, it’s quite the contrary; the 95 minute runtime makes the film into a lean, mean laugh producing machine (what?). Step Brothers is fast paced and all the more satisfying for it – although I couldn’t come up with much negative to say about Talladega Nights at the time of my review, it was in retrospect about 20 minutes too long and lost a lot of its humor in the second act. But Step Brothers propels forward with a simple (perhaps too simple and one note for some) storyline and a non-stop goofy sense of humor.

This latest comedy from the Ferrell/McKay/Apatow super team continues the trend begun with Talladega Nights; while the Ballad of Ricky Bobby had a lot more realism and story than the zaniness of Anchorman, here Step Brothers is even more of a streamlined, plot driven experience than the last. The lengthy detours into improv have been largely abandoned and replaced with quick, almost throwaway one liners. These zingers make the film perhaps the most quotable of Ferrell’s endeavors, and seem almost deliberate - as if when cobbling together the script, Ferrell and McKay intentionally zeroed in on that part of their style for whatever reason.

While not the funniest movie Ferrell has written (it’ll always be hard to top Anchorman), Step Brothers might be the one that works the most as a film as opposed to a series of hilarious moments. This is helped by the fact that legitimate roles were fleshed out for much of the supporting cast. While Ferrell and his partner in crime John C. Reilly are clearly the stars of the show, the other characters also get the chance to shine and move the plot along. Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins are great (and surprisingly funny) as the duo’s newly married parents, and relative unknown Adam Scott turns in a truly hilarious performance as Ferrell’s dickhead successful younger brother.

But despite my praise of its story making capabilities, Step Brothers might be seen by many as too much of a one joke premise, almost phoned in. While it does seem like an idea that the group came up with one night over beers and decided to run with, sometimes that can be a good thing – and the team of Ferrell and Reilly work so well together that it’s easy to overlook. And even if it does just feel like a really long and more fleshed out SNL sketch, at least it’s a really funny sketch.

As Brennan Huff, Ferrell has taken his familiar manchild act to its farthest extreme, probably as far as it can go (and brought a genius John C. Reilly along for the ride). He and Reilly literally act exactly like children – if the movie didn’t constantly remind us that the two are playing their age, I would have guessed that they were supposed to be portraying teenagers and their clearly older appearance was just another layer of the joke. But if, as rumored, a sequel to Anchorman is up next for Ferrell and McKay, it’s probably for the best. Step Brothers’ relative simplicity and straightforwardness shows that the duo seem just on the verge of coasting in the originality department, so why not revisit the greatest and most out there collaboration between them? But hopefully this time they’ll come up with a role for John C. Reilly.

Grade: A-

- Jeff Latta