If it's not quite a bundle of joy, it's at least a bassinet of laughs.
Baby Mama is a relatively fertile comedy about surrogate motherhood that teams former "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update" newsdesk partners Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, both of whom emerged from Chicago's improvisational comedy troupe, "Second City."
Together, they midwife this audience-friendly romp with their crackerjack chemistry and timing.
Fey plays neat freak Kate Holbrook, a 37-year-old single Philadelphia organic-food-store executive who, while winding her biological clock, discovers that she's infertile.
Wanting to have a baby and maintain her career, she turns to Sigourney Weaver, the steely owner of a surrogacy center, a specialist in "maternal outsourcing." She pairs Kate with the unsophisticated Angie Ostrowiski, the slovenly slacker played by Poehler, as a surrogate mother.
When Kate finds out that working-class Angie, the one basket in which Kate is putting all her (artificially fertilized) eggs, is indeed pregnant with her baby, she shifts into type-A-control-freak mode, babyproofring the apartment, reading every child-rearing book she can get her hands on, checking out future pre-schools.
There are a few men on hand as well. Steve Martin plays Kate's oddball boss; Greg Kinnear is a single-dad juice-bar owner whom Kate is interested in; and Dax Shepard plays Angie's common-law husband, a guy who's mostly interested in the fee Angie is collecting for her services.
But Angie walks out on hubby. And when the expectant Angie, whom Kate isn't expecting, turns up needing a place to live, Kate has no choice but to take her in. Almost immediately, Kate's ordered life gets turned upside down, as the odd-couple cohabitation offers up a familiar but nonetheless amusing helping of Felix-and-Oscar-like fun.
Michael McCullers, a comedy writer (this script, screenplays for the two Austin Powers sequels, TV's "Saturday Night Live") making his directing debut, also wrote the class-conscious screenplay, which is broad and mainstream rather than edgy and hip.
But his main job seems to be to showcase his two female leads and allow them to shine -- and he does. And they do.
Fey makes a quantum leap in the acting department -- she's obviously quite comfortable with SNL colleague McCullers at the helm -- and Poehler, who is consistently funny on large screen and small, gets what is certainly the showiest movie role she's had thus far and takes to it with relish.
At the very least, the film deserves points -- and an audience -- for being a femme-centric alternative to the check's-in-the-male humor on display of late compliments of the Judd Apatow comedy factory.
Pity that the film's third trimester doesn't develop more fully rather than folding in on itself and settling for an ending that feels abrupt. But the first two trimesters are fine, with solid bits and gags delivered by the stars and witty supporting turns contributed by veterans Martin and Weaver and Romany Malco as the wiseacre doorman.
Unpredictability is not exactly the stock in trade here, but at least this eager-to-please diversion gives birth to the expected laughs.
So let's belabor 3 stars out of 4. Enjoying yourself at this upper-berth, bun-in-the-oven comedy is like taking candy from a Baby Mama.
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When Kate finds out that working-class Angie, the one basket in which Kate is putting all her (artificially fertilized) eggs, is indeed pregnant with her baby, she shifts into type-A-control-freak mode, babyproofring the apartment, reading every child-rearing book she can get her hands on, checking out future pre-schools.
