PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 5/11/07)

So what were you doing during the summer of 2005? Sitcom stars and off-screen BFF's Zach Braff and Jason Bateman spent the season here in New York, shooting a comedy entitled Fast Track alongside Amanda Peet, Charles Grodin, and Mia Farrow. Fast-forward two years later and the fruit of their labors is finally reaching theaters as The Ex, 2007's second-most generic movie title after Music and Lyrics. But the name isn't the only thing that's been changed. Judging by the numerous continuity errors, plotting problems, and awkward shifts in tone, The Ex has been through the re-shoot wringer as the filmmakers and studio went back and over what kind of film it should be.

In the end, they apparently decided to make three movies in one. The Ex begins as a relationship comedy about young marrieds Tom (Braff) and Sofia (Peet), who recently had their first child and have since made the difficult decision to move from New York to Sofia's Ohio hometown, where Tom has a standing employment opportunity at his father-in-law's ad agency.

Once they arrive in the Buckeye State, the film enters Meet the Parents territory as Tom attempts to please his skeptical in-laws (Grodin and Farrow) before arriving at the plotline that dominates all of the trailers, the bitter rivalry between our hero and his wheelchair-bound co-worker Chip (Bateman). Back in high school, Chip and Sofia were briefly an item and the poor guy has never gotten over her. Chip wouldn't admit to this in public, of course; around the office he's established himself as a model employee and a surrogate son for Tom's father-in-law. But Tom knows there's something off about him from the get-go and his suspicions are confirmed when Chip repeatedly maneuvers him into awkward situations, like recruiting him to play a game of wheelchair basketball without informing the rest of the players that the new guy isn't disabled. Tom's obsession with unmasking Chip inevitably hurts his relationship with Sofia, who finds herself regretting her decision to give up her lucrative law career to be a stay-at-home mom.

It would be interesting to track down a copy of David Guion and Michael Handelman's original screenplay to see just how much of it remains in the theatrical version. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess not very much. Certainly, all of the scenes that feature Saturday Night Live colleagues Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen (who have tiny roles as two of Tom's other co-workers) feel as though they've been dropped into the movie after the fact in a desperate attempt to generate some bigger laughs. There's also a subplot involving a former nemesis of Sofia's (played by Amy Adams) that seems oddly abbreviated.

As for what is in the movie, the best moments are not, as you might expect, between Bateman and Braff, but between Braff, Peet, and the four or five infants that play their baby boy. It's refreshing to see a comedy about parenthood where Mom and Dad aren't forced to act like bumbling idiots whenever they have to change a diaper or calm a crying baby. These scenes possess a natural warmth and humor that the rest of the movie sorely lacks. Although, to be fair to Bateman, he's actually quite funny as Chip — it's the writing (or, to be more accurate, the re-writing) that lets him down. But the actor that comes off the best in The Ex is Grodin, who spouts some hilariously cranky one-liners that sound too off-the-cuff to be scripted. It's hard to believe that this veteran scene-stealer hasn't appeared on the big screen in over a decade. Too bad he didn't pick a better film to stage his comeback.

— Ethan Alter