Due Date

Director Todd Phillips last film, The Hangover, had broad humour that might not have been to everybody's taste, but it had a sense of fun, originality and energy that was quite infectious and was frequently very funny.

The follow-up, Due Date, is allegedly a more mature film, although what exactly mature means here I'm not totally certain. The humour is often more puerile and the heart is completely missing.

The plot is in many respects a re-hash of the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles with the birth of a first child substituted for Thanksgiving as the reason for the trip. Robert Downey Jr takes the Steve Martin role and Zach Galifianakis taking the John Candy role. As a comedy its hit and miss - more miss than hit, but in a few of the moments when it does hit, it is genuinely funny.

However, unfortunately most of the time it mistakes being shocking for being funny and lumbers of with two main characters who are just unlikeable. Galifianakis is in danger of being typecast as the odd loser, but here is missing something likeable that makes you realise just how much both Hughes and Candy are missed. But the real bum-note comes from Downey Jr, spectacularly breaking his recent almost infallible run. His is supposed to be the normal character, the one we're supposed to relate to, but is just plain unlikeable for most of the film. He also displays such extreme anger-management issues, one must question whether he is fit to be a father at all. So, we're supposed to laugh as he punches a small child hard in the stomach or spits on a dog?

Its also difficult to buy his eventual warming to his travelling companion as being lasting or either of them having learnt anything, coming as it does under the influence of large quantities of drugs.

Overall - 4/10  Fitfully funny, but that really doesn't make sitting through the rest of the film worthwhile