THE TITLE IS “Step Brothers.” You know, because there are two of them.

But Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are essentially playing the same person, which is the movie’s fundamental, irreparable flaw.

As 40-year-olds who’ve never left home and are forced to share a bedroom when their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins) get married, Ferrell and Reilly are stuck in the same state of arrested development. There’s no odd-couple tension, no witty banter, just a prolonged, painfully unfunny game of one-upmanship in which each actor is trying to outdo the other in one-note obnoxiousness. You wouldn’t want to spend two hours with one of them, much less both.

The humorously awkward chemistry these actors shared as NASCAR teammates in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” is gone, because the script makes no room for it. Which is strange, because Ferrell co-wrote the screenplay with his old friend, director Adam McKay, with whom he collaborated on that previous comedy. (Reilly shares a story-by credit.)

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As you watch the movie, it doesn’t take long to realize that their creative process consisted of sitting around, cracking each other up with adolescent gags, and then writing it all down.

Whether the rest of the world will be doubled over with laughter seems irrelevant.

» R for crude and sexual content, and pervasive language. 112 min. One and a half stars out of four.

Written by Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

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Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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