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Obviously nothing groundbreaking, but in a curious and disappointing big screen slump of sorts, this might just be the most consistently entertaining comedy Ferrell has made in the past several years. Though Daddy's Home, Get Hard, and Anchorman 2 might've had some high-points that were funnier than any one moment here, The House feels more content with lower stakes, and feels less desperate for constant laughs. So on one end you have Anchorman 2 which is striving for laughs so often that it becomes exhausting in its relentless swinging despite managing some great bits here and there, and on the other end there's The House, which mostly just allows character dynamics and the premises of scenes take care of the comedy rather than alternate line improv showcases, as weak as its own attempts at that can sometimes be.
Mantzoukas is easily the standout, but if you're as familiar with him as I am, then you know he's not doing anything especially new here, though it is nice to see it in a big movie. But the rest of the cast is so phenomenal on paper but they often feel so jam-packed that the film doesn't have enough for all of them to do. Nick Kroll, Rob Huebel, Michaela Watkins and Allison Tolman end up being those outside of the three leads who are given the most to work with and succeed with, but this is a movie that also flaunts Rory Scovel, Cedric Yarbrough, Kyle Kinane, Lennon Parham, Andrea Savage, Sam Richardson, Andy Buckley, Steve Zissis, and even Jeremy Renner, and gives them nice mini-showcases, while ultimately feeling like it's underselling them, while also essentially reducing people like Randall Park, Jessica St. Clair, Wayne Federman and Ian Roberts to being walk-on roles. That's not to say that this movie needs to be a weighty two-hour affair, but at 88 minutes (including credits and a "Why do they still do this?" outtakes reel) it often does feel unnecessarily rushed along. Even seeing some TV spots tonight after having seen the movie, there are tons of moments and lines that would've stood strongly next to anything that did make the final cut.
The weirdest thing about it all is how little time it manages to make for Ferrell and Poehler to be as funny as you know they should be. They're something of the straight players and the foils early on who then let the world they've created for themselves consume them and change them into more comedically heightened personas, though by the time their characters have shifted, you're not sure you really knew them all that well to begin with.
And yet, despite hardly ever thinking it was as funny as it could've been, I still had found it oddly likable and never especially problematic or overtly unfunny even when it wasn't delivering laughs. It's a moderately well-made studio comedy, seemingly from a bygone era stylistically and structurally, with everyone in the cast managing to get some solid work in, but when it ended I found myself looking forward to eventually tracking down the Deleted and Alternate Scenes instead of revisiting the film itself.
In the end, the better Poehler-fronted comedy centered around destructive late-night behaviour in a house remains Sisters, and Ferrell's last truly hilarious, perfectly re-watchable comedy is probably still The Other Guys (not counting Lego Movie, of course, which is just the best with any qualifier). Perhaps a double feature of those would make for a better night.
There's nothing funny in this movie. Really sad how bad it is.
Yup, that was definitely the general consensus on it, so I'm not shocked you feel that way, haha.. I am still surprised it was as universally panned as it ended up being, though. Especially since I saw it there were no reviews out yet to kinda brace for it, and I seemingly found more to like in it than most.
On that note I did enjoy the mild second wave of evaluation for it by people who passed on it initially who were influenced to watch it after Chance the Rapper went on a tweet-storm about its bad reviews, calling it a "comedic delicacy" that deserved better. This article by Matt Singer, in particular.
It's sloppily made (in its typical improv stitch-'em-together feel) and even often unremarkable (though I think there are laughs, there are no big peaks), but the stacked (if unevenly utilized) cast elevates it, and I've still thought about watching again for some reason.