THE FABULOUS FOUR: 1 STAR. “less than fabulous film that doesn’t deliver the goods.”
SYNOPSIS: Until a guy got in the way, college friends Lou (Susan Sarandon), Marilyn (Bette Midler), Alice (Megan Mullally) and Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) were inseparable, but when Marilyn scooped up one of Lou’s crushes, they stopped talking. Fifty years later, as Marilyn prepares to remarry in Key West, Alice and Kitty trick Lou into coming to the wedding. “We need to get the gang back together before we’re 500,” says Alice. But can the joys of sisterhood and a new marriage smooth over the hurt of a betrayal that dates back decades?
CAST: Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Bruce Greenwood, Timothy V. Murphy, Michael Bolton. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse.
REVIEW: The stars of “The Fabulous Four” have earned a great deal of audience goodwill over the years. Between them, they have Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and who knows what else. But “The Fabulous Four” is the kind of excruciating experience that burns that goodwill into ashes.
Hackneyed and beyond predictable, “The Fabulous Four” aims to be a feel-good movie about friendship and the everlasting power of sisterhood but, is instead, a charmless exercise in cliché.
The Fab Four above-the-title-stars do what they can with the material, but no amount of goodwill or years of experience can breathe life into mom jokes like, “We’re the bridesmaids…” “You mean old maids,” the lame physical humor or the strangely lifeless Michael Bolton performance.
“The Fabulous Four” means well but is a less than fabulous film that doesn’t deliver the goods.