Absolutely no part of me would have wanted to check out a movie called "Baby Mama" on my own. I am a pretty open-minded guy and if Gob hadn't already beaten me to it I would totally try to marry Amy Poehler. Still the premise seemed so feeble and Tina Fey seems so annoying that there was no part of me that considered this as a potential evening's activity. Of course someone else did and I was too feeble to fight for Zohan over it (I do love Adam Sandler but come on now - there's no way that can be good, I don't care what Jeffrey Lyons thinks - that guy likes every movie).
There really doesn't seem to be anything inherently funny with a woman who is awkwardly obsessing over having a child and is told she is incapable of having one, in fact the whole scene sets itself up to be kinda sad. Well sad and really awkward - what's the lesson - we're really just animals who want to reproduce...oh wait... And it would be, she basically just gets disappointed over and over again and aside from a few small positives in her work life things just aren't REALLY going her way. Thanks to Poehler's flawless portrayal of white trash surrogate Angie and boyfriend Carl (played by Dax Shepard - you really need to go get "Let's Go To Prison" if you haven't seen it yet by the way) the movie is actually quite consistently funny. Plus the hilarious Steve Martin cameo is one more piece of proof that only he and Bill Murray deserve any respect from fans of comedies of the 80's (yeah John Cusack you DO suck now - no matter how cool you think you look with sunglasses or how into the Clash you are - oh and John Candy may you rest your great soul in peace).
Although there are (almost) too many simple gag jokes (tee hee, she peed in a toilet because she's so dumb) the humor is fairly intelligent (five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact as a reward - that is genius) and what's lacking in the storyline department (or surprise department) is made up for with the ridiculous characters.
A bit of a storybook ending? Sure, but hell, it's a movie called "Baby Mama" so you gotta kinda expect it - just like you should now expect anything that Amy Poehler does to be hilarious. So although it may not make many top ten lists it will make you laugh and smile more than many that will.