FILM FEST TRIBECKONS
'BABY MAMA' OPENS FESTIVAL - GOOD THING THERE'S OTHER STUFF
Rating: 
April 23, 2008 --
WHEN you open a comedy with a woman being told by a doctor that she has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming pregnant, my experience tells me there is pretty much only one possible outcome.
What's disappointing is that the woman in question - a baby-craving career woman named Kate - is played by Tina Fey, the brilliant and appealing star of "30 Rock" and former head writer for "Saturday Night Live" in her first movie lead.
Surely, if Fey herself had written "Baby Mama," tonight's mediocre opening attraction at the Tribeca Film Festival (it hits theaters Friday), this mild cross between "Baby Boom" and "The Odd Couple" would not be so crushingly predictable.
I'd like to think it would have more edge and would not base its laughs so heavily on caricaturing the other main character - a working-class surrogate mom named Angie played by Amy Poehler - who is described as "white trash" by Kate in the flick's most cringe-worthy moment.
Fey and Poehler, who worked together on "SNL," have considerable comic chemistry as the career woman and the surrogate mother she hires. The latter abruptly becomes Kate's roommate after Angie walks out on her common-law husband (Dax Shepard).
Too bad that debuting writer-director Michael McCullers (who used to work under Fey as a writer) has provided them with such lame barbs, far too many of which revolve around Kate's horror at Angie's predilection for junk food.
With virtually nothing in the way of visual or physical comedy, there are more chuckles here than belly laughs, and most of them are delivered by the supporting cast.
Steve Martin is a hoot as Kate's ponytailed, New-Agey boss at a Whole Earth-like company, who chooses Kate to supervise the opening of a new flagship store in Philadelphia (the film's ostensible setting, though most of it was filmed in New York).
Sigourney Weaver also steals scenes as the impossibly fertile 50-something who heads the agency that hooks up Kate and Angie in the first place.
Faring less well is poor Greg Kinnear as Kate's nominal love interest, who runs a juice bar and, um, sets up the climax. Considering he ran a coffee shop in his last movie, Kinnear may want to find a new agent.
Even Romany Malco, as Kate's requisite wisecracking doorman, gets better lines.
Pregnant with possibilities, "Baby Mama" wants too badly to be loved to take any chances.
Men who are coerced into seeing this chick flick may feel like they've been attached to an estrogen drip.
