The Babymakers: Film Review

There are movies about men (actually, most movies are about those of us with a “Y” chromosome) and then there are movies about what it means to “be a man”, specifically how your body and your ability to relate to the opposite sex is tied to your masculinity. Unfortunately for the makers behind The Babymakers, “being a man” ends up feeling like something you’d just rather not be.

The movie starts off with a young-ish couple Tommy and Audrey (played by Paul Schneider and Olivia Munn) who are trying to have a baby. Nothing seems to be working and Tommy’s buds use his serial misfires as the source of all kinds of bad sex jokes lame penis puns.

Turns out, Tommy has an ultra-low sperm count, which for him is nothing short of a death sentence. He’d really rather be dead than unable to impregnate his wife. He’d rather be a eunuch. Or gay. Or a woman. But a man who can’t plant his seed inside his beloved to give birth to another being is just the worst of The Worst. (And in case you’re wondering, no, they don’t discuss adoption in the movie because this is not about his desire to have kids; it’s about his desire to have the ability to have kids. There’s a huge chasm between the two - ask the Duggar family of Arkansas).

I wish I could say that there was something remotely funny or even accidentally redeeming about this movie, but I cannot. It goes straight for the groin and then jumps down into the pants and out to the toilet bowl and off into the sewer. I can’t recall a movie where we seen where the male lead spends more time in his bedroom trying to masturbate than talking to the female star. It’s gross and juvenile and mostly repugnant in ways that you can’t believe any adult filmmaker would ever want to subject other adults to.

Imagine the worst Adam Sandler movie you’ve ever seen. I mean ever. (And, boy, have there been some doozies). Now imagine a movie worse than that. This is the hapless, mirthless, and entirely without a single laugh or ounce of joy disaster that is The Babymakers.

It’s a shame that two such talented actors were tricked into starring in this disaster. But on the upside it sheds light on precisely the type of people we don’t want reproducing at any point in human history. If the planet is to be populated with the progeny of couples like Audrey and Tommy, then may the wildebeests wipe us out: Every. Last. One.