A comedy story follows a mother who returns to her young. Recently she had some troubles with her husband which lead them to a divorce. After that, she decided to her college in order to complete her degree among a series of comedy events.
Melissa McCarthy is comedy royalty - it's a scientific fact, look it up - but even the Bridesmaids star can't keep this mom-goes-to-college fluffball from flatlining.
The story is inconsistent from one scene to the next -sometimes from one shot to the next - with nearly every scene looking desperately improvised, falling flat, and left in for the sake of filling out the running time.
No matter how outrageous the circumstances get, McCarthy always works best when her natural love and goodwill leads the way. She's a comedic mama bear at heart.
It's a generic comedy that you've seen a million times...it's just not a good movie, and there are some things that work as far as comedy goes, but it's a rental as best.
Falcone and McCarthy seem so concerned with delivering on their audience's pratfall assumptions that they never allow McCarthy to expand her capabilities in any meaningful way.
Life of the Party is proof that even the funniest actors need good material, which makes it all the more disappointing that McCarthy wrote the script with director Ben Falcone, who is also her husband.
