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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Step Brothers
Columbia Pictures (Sony)


7.0

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 65 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for crude and sexual content, and pervasive language

Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen, Adam Scott, and Katherine Hahn

Brennan Huff is a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother, Nancy. Dale Doback is a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert. When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart, these two middle-aged, immature, overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane, elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off, they must form an unlikely bond that maybe, just maybe, will finally get them out of the house. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Will Ferrell Adam McKay
DIRECTED BY:	Adam McKay
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 2, 2008 Theatrical: July 25, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	95 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

New York Post Kyle Smith

There is too much funny here for a movie (even though it continues into the closing credits). Step Brothers should be a TV show.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

So childish it seems to arrive in diapers, and that's not bad; it's good.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Not to wax too serious here (since this is, after all, a movie in which two nearly middle-aged men beat each other over the heads with blunt instruments on their front lawn), but ticking away just beneath Step Brothers' freely associative surface is a fairly astute commentary on how we define such abstract concepts as "growing up" and "making something of yourself."

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Step Brothers is a Judd Apatow production and it's the closest that the Apatow factory has come to spitting out a dumb-and-dumber high-concept comedy.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

While Ferrell and Reilly are great together, hatching harebrained schemes that have no basis in reality, part of the unexpected treat of Step Brothers is watching Jenkins and Steenburgen sink to such blithely immature levels of rude and crude comedy.

Premiere Jenni Miller

Step Brothers is a hard R, for good reason. While it's somewhat sweeter, if you will, than a typical Apatow flick, the ludicrous situations call for equally ludicrous behavior and statements.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Stupid, crude and hilarious, Step Brothers works by sneaking past our better judgment.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Step Brothers at its best is a smarter "Dumb and Dumber."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Take the kids at your peril. Mismarketing aside, Step Brothers is crudely funny, which means that sometimes it's crudely hilarious and more often it's just crude.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's a testament to their performances -- and the spirit of this surprisingly raunchy, decidedly R-rated comedy -- that by the end credits, you've grown to like them a little bit. You just wouldn't want to live with them.

TV Guide Staff (Not credited)

The inspired pairing of "Talledega's" Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, two actors smart enough to play dumb and make it work.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Stupid, predictable and fairly funny.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Starting at infantile and regressing hysterically from there, Step Brothers flies on the comic chemistry of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

Los Angeles Times Sam Adams

Step Brothers is not a retread so much as a reduction, stripping away the magical pretext of "Elf" and the period trappings of "Anchorman" to get to the heart of the thriving man-boy genre.

Empire Chris Hewitt

It's no Anchorman, but it's several steps in the right direction.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Reilly is a good foil for Ferrell, but too many of their scenes together have the effect of improv night at the comedy club.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Are Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay getting tired of their own shtick?

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

A meagre, occasionally funny affair.

Film Threat Mark Bell

Simply, the movie is a tale of extremes resulting in a tepid middleground.

USA Today Claudia Puig

America loves dysfunctional families, but haven't we seen enough middle-aged losers who haven't grown up?

San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci

Essentially a throwaway film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The Will Ferrell comedy engine is running on empty in Step Brothers.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

This is a loud, ugly, foul comedy whose shortcomings extends far into the supporting cast.

Newsweek David Ansen

I don't want to sound like a party pooper (or deny that there is something wickedly funny about seeing these middle-age adolescents beating the crap out of a playground full of little bullying kids) but there's something depressing about the never-ending celebration of eternal adolescence in recent American comedies.

Variety John Anderson

The film is funny at times but lapses into the reflexive vulgarity that seems to be the default mechanism of the Apatow machinery.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Step Brothers has comic fuel to burn, some of it unashamedly non sequitur and stupid-brilliant, but it still feels like a post-"Talladega" flameout.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The only thing that can explain middle-aged men acting like 6-year-olds is mental retardation, and there's nothing funny about that. The idea of middle-aged actors playing adolescents isn't much funnier. Put it this way: Such an idea does not make for an inexhaustible source of comedy.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

They're losers that only a mother, an entertainment manager or a gang of self-satisfied comedy insiders could love.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

In Step Brothers, the language is simply showing off by talking dirty. It serves no comic function, and just sort of sits there in the air, making me cringe.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Humor is subjective, but this movie made me feel as if I had been subjected to something unpleasant.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Ferrell and Reilly get more mileage out of juvenile pouting and bickering than any other performers I can imagine, but that's about as far as this goes.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

So that's three snickers, not counting the Bush quote, 'cause including that one ain't fair, man.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

There's a good subject for satire here, the extended adolescence of American kids. But satire presupposes maturity, or at least some perspective. The movie's calculation is that its subjects and audience share the same point of view. The results are truly ghastly.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 65 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Aron J. gave it a2:
I really wanted to like this movie, i really did. I'm a huge fan of Ferrell, but, he just didn't deliver in this. As for Reilly, i don't expect much. I'm not against cussing in movies, but, the language in this movie just didn't flow, they emphasized on the explictives, and took from the humor.

Jay H. gave it a4:
Really dumb and silly comedy, Will Farrell is still playing the same one note character he always plays. At least there is Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen, they are terrific. Only occasionally amusing.

Shane G. gave it a9:
This movie really reminded me of myself and my brother when we were say, 10 and 12. So I laughed a lot. The critics are stupid, they don't understand what true comedy is. Movies critics have said are hilarious have sucked horribly, and ones they hate I usually love.

K T. gave it a9:
I am fed up of these kind of comedies being criticized. The only comedies that get a fair review are the Little miss sunshine/Darjiling Limited type comedies. Step Brothers was very funny and has kept us laughing since.

Harry gave it an8:
Great joke after joke, it seems they forced the cussing in at points which was out of place but hey it's there movie, I'm a totally buy it and those 2 are great pair and this with talledega nights totally showed that.

Lou E. gave it a2:
It's all stuff we've seen before. They played it safe, Ferral and Reilly have played idiot man-cild role to death, there is no new unexplored territory, I wanted to like it, but it was like seeing a tamer Talladega Nights.

Peter S gave it a1:
Anchorman this certainly ain't. This film is chronic and a waste of a tenner plus how many minutes spent watching it.

Step Brothers Columbia Pictures (Sony)

Step Brothers
Columbia Pictures (Sony)