While the general world of theatrical comedies remains elusive at multiplexes everywhere, one strain of the genre keeps on chugging in theaters. The Last Vegas/Going in Style/Book Club-style comedy is still going strong. Titles focusing on a wacky trio or quartet of famous actors over 60 persist at Cinemarks everywhere. Even Book Club 2: The Next Chapter’s box office failure last year couldn’t stop this subgenre. On the surface, The Fabulous Four looks like another breezy summertime entry in this domain. In many ways, including its flat third act, it totally is. Yet, some distinctive and even downright weird touches keep it from being another Wild Hogs pastiche.
Back in the day, Marilyn (Bette Midler), surgeon Lou (Susan Sarandon), singer Alice (Megan Mullaly), and botanist Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) were best friends growing up in New York City. After a few decades, though, those friendships have grown complicated. Lou and Marilyn, specifically, are no longer on speaking terms. However, that frayed dynamic is about to get “repaired” now that the latter character is getting married. While preparing for a lavish wedding in Key West, she yearns for her best friends to be her bridesmaids—all three of them.
Alice and Kitty tricking Lou into traveling to Key West was only the beginning of their struggles. Once these former pals reunite, tensions clearly haven’t frayed between the duo. Unresolved conflict looms over every pre-wedding celebration, even once Lou begins a flirty rapport with local DILF Ted (Bruce Greenwood). Can this quartet reunite and become “the fabulous four” again? Or will yesteryear’s turmoil capsize a once beautiful friend group?
Much of The Fabulous Four is what you’d expect for a typical 2024 theatrical comedy aimed at the 65+ crowd. For one thing, in a disappointing contrast to her previous works like 2016’s charming The Dressmaker, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s direction isn’t anything to write home about. She and cinematographer Roberto Schaefer execute this feature with the same overly bright lighting and lifeless staging permeating most modern yukfests. Everything on-screen is just too sterile and clean. Second-unit footage of Key West looks cribbed from a disposable tourism ad. Even a strip club detour lacks any visual wear and tear in the sets.
Yet Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly’s screenplay keeps throwing little inexplicable curveballs at viewers. These eccentric flashes excitingly subvert expectations for how this kind of comedy operates. How many Book Club/Last Vegas-style movies feature small children asking their cannabis-growing grandmother, “Are you going to hell”? Meanwhile, Alice is a woman with sexual exploits that upend the subgenre’s conventionally chaste norms. Proudly beaming with pride when folks call her a “slut”, Alice bangs young dudes and brags about using her vagina to hold edibles and vape pens with equal levels of aplomb.
Then there’s the recurring bits of personality emanating from setting this tale in Key West. This includes seemingly every denizen (including a crusty Irish sea captain) knowing passages from famous resident Ernest Hemingway by heart. Let’s also not forget about a strange set piece involving hang-gliding, a drugged-up Lou imagining a gigantic cat taking over her surgeon job, and some truly atrocious green-screen work. It’s a poorly executed sequence, yet charms persist within the shortcomings. How many features like The Fabulous Four contain something as bizarre like a supposedly frantic Lou only half-heartedly calling out “friends!” to jeopardized pals just off-screen?
Perhaps to compete with this weekend’s fellow new theatrical release Deadpool & Wolverine, Moorehead’s production features a surprise celebrity cameo from a musician many may recognize as “a major cinephile”. These incredibly distinctive qualities give The Fabulous Four brief bursts of life. The film’s quartet of talented lead actors mightily inform those creative peaks. Sarandon wrung a mildly popular internet meme from The Lovely Bones. Unsurprisingly, she proves an engaging anchor for these mild-mannered antics.
Among the main quartet, Megan Mullaly’s performance is most commendable. Her time as Alice exemplifies the best way for comedic actors to inhabit scene-stealing side characters. Alice is The Fabulous Four’s equivalent to Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids or Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover. She’s the one with the grandest funny moments. Audiences are meant to exit the theater buzzing about her greatest lines. Other comedic actors would go too broad in trying to win over audiences. Experienced pro Mullaly, meanwhile, plays Alice with confidence. She grabs the eyes through a more naturalistic yet deeply humorous portrayal of this sexually experienced figure. It’s a performance crystallizing how you don’t have to be the loudest actor to leave a mighty impression.
While this project has its charms, its central conflict weighs down the entire movie like an anchor. Amidst a few unexpected narrative flourishes, Marilyn and Lou’s friction still comes down to the usual “boy troubles”. Meanwhile, clumsy writing plagues the pair’s constant oscillations between friends and enemies. It’s hard to get comfortable with the idea that they may have united as pals. After all, their bond promptly unravels so quickly after patching things up. Then there’s The Fabulous Four‘s lazy third act, seemingly written hastily in an afternoon.
In this section, key character arcs like Kitty’s relationship with her uber-religious daughter go absolutely nowhere. Marilyn and Lou exchange sappy, verbose dialogue running counter to The Fabulous Four’s best fleeting silly charms. Moorehouse and company’s struggles with this ending culminate in an inexplicable song-and-dance number ripped straight from a 2000s DreamWorks Animation film. A messy conclusion fits an ungainly feature that’s unsure if it’s a Book Club knock-off or its weirder cousin. For every inspired Megan Mullaly gag, The Fabulous Four‘s ham-fisted pathos and TikTok name-drops lurk in the wings to undercut the mood. It’s impossible to call this motion picture fabulous, but it has charming moments.
The Fabulous Four is currently vacationing in theaters.