The Fabulous Four

Lou (Susan Sarandon), Marilyn (Bette Midler), Alice (Megan Mullally), and Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) have been best friends since their twenties. Lou is holding a grudge against Marilyn. With Marilyn having a destination wedding, Alice and Kitty trick Lou to attend as the bridesmaids.

These are four fabulous older actresses. Almost immediately, I am wondering what is going wrong. The most obvious is Marilyn's TikTok obsession. She needs to be dumber and more flighty for that comedy to work. I would prefer something more simple and heartfelt. I can feel my heart drop every time they go back to old-people-doing-social-media jokes. This is a sad attempt at comedy.

Using seasoned women in a comedy seems to be a genre in itself and the genre is picking up fast. As part of this genre The Fabulous Four is lackluster to films like Book Club and 80 for Brady. It might be that Diane Keaton and Jane Fonda have this genre on lock, which is strange because Sussan Sarandon is one of the hottest senior citizens out there, so this should have worked but it did not, at least not for me.

I do ponder. While the film is exploiting stars of a certain age there is very little comedy actually coming from this. We understand they are old and the movie leaves us with that and nothing else. Unlike films like Thelma in which I get a better insight of what happens to every human on the planet when they get old and that insight increased the entertainment value.

That insight is not found here as the women take advantage of their great genetics and the fact that they need not play old to tell a story about lifelong friendship, which i could have seen anywhere and have seen everywhere so The Fabulous Four is not bringing anything to the table and it shows.

Pass altogether.

There's a first time for everything. This was my first time walking out of a movie 45 minutes in. But I could feel this boring, by the numbers, unfunny slog draining my will to live so I had to go.

Megan Mullaly had a few good zingers. Everyone else was hammy and boring. Predictable old lady jokes with some stock characters for the main cast to bump up against for some reason I guess. I don't know.

Who funded this? Who wrote this? Why does this uninteresting mess exist? It didn't even have the courtesy to be so bad it's funny. It's just plain bad. But hey, get that bag girls. I don't fault the leads for wanting a check.

Seriously, was this movie funded by the Key West tourism board? Or written by them?

What a waste of good talent! The script was poorly written, directed poorly and the location looked more like a promotion of a tourist destination in a very tacky part of the USA. Product placement was oh so obvious....it was all so much in your face. We walked out of the cinema after 30 mins when the "stars" started to sing in harmony whilst flying through the air against which was so obviously a false backdrop. My friend and I were very disappointed after the trailer promised so much! I'm a big fan of Bette Midler & Susan Sarandon....this movie was beneath both of these fab actors! Could not recommend.

My wife and I saw the trailer and really liked it. It reminded us both of the film Last Vegas. The basic storyline similarities are plentiful. The problem is the execution. The only positive I have is Susan Sarandon. Her character's storyline is the only thing worthy of admission and she delivered with what she was given. The other ladies were given nothing to display their brilliant comedic talents. The thought of seeing Broadway legends Bette Midler and Sheryl Lee Ralph on the big screen was gonna be epic. Too bad these writers and director were not up to ther task.

As I stated earlier, if you have seen the film Last Vegas, you could say this film looks like the female lead version. Fabulous Four has the powerhouse talent just the same as Last Vegas and even similar storyline arcs, but this film relies too heavily on cheap, immature, repetitive, bad jokes and not enough energy building a good script. Wait for streaming.