Wild Hogs

Lifelong friends run into mid-life crises ranging from low-level malaise to marital breakdown. They decide to embark on an adventure together, taking themselves out of their comfort zones in an effort to reclaim their youth or at least rediscover their spirit. Hilarity ensues, buddies bond, and the men emerge walking funny but with the realization they have a lot to live for.

If you're old enough to relate to this premise, it will likely remind you of City Slickers. The bad news: Wild Hogs is no City Slickers. The good news: While utterly lacking in subtlety, surprise, or nuance, Wild Hogs has some genuinely funny scenes, and a decent enough cast (particularly the reliable William H. Macy) to mostly distract its audience from its mediocre script.

Doug (Tim Allen) is a dentist with a spacious home and a loving, supportive wife (a woefully under-used Jill Hennessy). His only real problem: His tween-aged son doesn't think he's cool. Doug begins to examine his life (and spreading waistline) and wonders if he might need a little more adventure.

Bobby (Martin Lawrence) is a plumber whose yearlong writing sabbatical has just been brought to a forceful close by his overbearing wife (a woefully stereotyped Tachina Arnold). The complete lack of respect for him in his household, coupled with a catastrophic toilet-incident his first day back on the job, get him looking for a chance to reassert his manhood (or maybe just get out of town).

Dudley (William H. Macy) is a geeky computer programmer whose inability to talk to women has kept him a pining bachelor. He's ready to do something drastic—like get a tattoo of the Apple Computer logo on his right bicep, or maybe even get his shiny Harley dirty on the back roads of America.

Woody (John ...

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