Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Directed by Josh Greenbaum, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar follows Kristen Wiig’s Star and Annie Mumolo’s Barb as they decide to shake things up by spontaneously traveling to the Florida-based title locale – with complications ensuing after the best friends become ensnared in a dastardly plot concocted by an evil genius (Wiig’s Sharon Gordon Fisherman). It’s an unabashedly larger-than-life setup that’s employed to mostly watchable yet distressingly erratic effect by Greenbaum, and there’s little doubt, ultimately, that the movie fares best in its briskly-paced, laugh-out-loud funny opening half hour – with the appealing atmosphere heightened and perpetuated by Wiig and Mumolo’s tremendously affable work as the ditzy title characters. (Jamie Dornan’s hilarious and eye-opening turn as a conflicted villain is ultimately a highlight within the proceedings, however.) The compulsively watchable vibe persists right up until around the halfway mark, unfortunately, as Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar, it becomes increasingly apparent, has been saddled with a palpably overlong running time that wreaks havoc on its momentum and paves the way for a somewhat anticlimactic final stretch – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a frustratingly hit-and-miss comedy that could (and should) have been so much better.

**1/2 out of ****