"The Fabulous Four" has four fabulous leads but depresses rather than delights

The Fabulous Four (2024)

Surely a movie could carry itself with four comic dynamos, but "The Fabulous Four" commits the cardinal sin of any comedy: it’s not very funny. This is the type of terrible comedy that makes you begin counting the number of laughs (if any). To go one step further, it’s an impressively unfunny comedy with the likes of consummate talents Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, and Sheryl Lee Ralph, making it that much more of a bummer. They are all fabulous and remain fabulous even after this lame, mostly incompetent dud, but everyone deserves better. 

This fab four has been friends since college in New York. Marilyn (Midler) is the life of the party and now dabbles on TikTok; Lou (Sarandon) is an accomplished heart surgeon but also an uptight, germaphobic cat lady; Alice (Mullally) is a saucy singer with an appetite for younger men; and Kitty (Ralph) is a botanist and cannabis farmer. Having lost her husband only six months ago, Marilyn made the move to a Key West (in a smart house no less, so there’s room for hackneyed “older folks figuring out technology” jokes). She’s also getting remarried, and Marilyn wants her three best girls there, including Lou, in spite of their rift. Alice and Kitty do trick Lou into going without even mentioning Marilyn, saying she’s won a six-toed cat from the Hemingway House (don’t ask, it’s cat-lady logic). Over the course of the weekend, can Lou let go of her grudge against Marilyn and create new memories?

"The Fabulous Four" might have coasted along on the pleasant vibes of these four women, but director Jocelyn Moorhouse ("How to Make an American Quilt") and writers Ann Marie Allison & Jenna Milly ("Golden Arm") don’t really assist in making that happen. The movie begins earnestly, showing and telling through photos of these four actresses in their twenties cued to Sarandon’s voice-over. Maybe this will be a delightful crowd-pleaser about aging, friendship, and reconciliation à la "The First Wives Club." Maybe not. 

There is such a strain to get laughs, which throws the comedic timing completely off from the word go. Lurching from one moment to the next (scenes either go on too long or entire scenes seem to be missing), the movie is jumpy in its rhythms while still feeling inert. Once the annoyingly jaunty music score sounds, we know we’re in for a dumbed-down comedy with wacky parasailing hijinks, Kegel balls being used as a weapon, and one-liners about smuggling weed in vaginas. Wedged in between everything is flimsy friction between friends that wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test and a subplot involving Kitty’s disapproving religious daughter and her gay grandson. If there are any surprises, it’s with one plot turn involving silver fox Ted (Bruce Greenwood), a Key West bar owner, only because there was the hope that the script wouldn’t stoop to being wrongheaded and just plain stupid (but, alas, it is). Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: D

Bleecker Street released “The Fabulous Four” (98 min.) in theaters July 26, 2024.