I skipped this one when it was in the theaters because of all the bad reviews. It was on tv recently and I watched, thinking it might give a different perspective of the original. I'm not a Stiller fan, but loved Something About Mary, so I had hope. I also love Neil Simon's brilliant work, but the original Heartbreak Kid (which in fairness was advertised as a "dark comedy", and indeed it was) I found to be unfunny and oddly disturbing. In the original, for those who haven't seen it, the character of Lila is a sweet Jewish girl whose only faults are she can't sing on key, she's a messy eater, and she constantly asks her new husband (named Lenny here) if he thinks the sex is good. She obviously adores and trusts him and is totally clueless that he's seeing someone else while she's stranded in their hotel room with her sunburn. When she's finally able to go out again, he tells her he wants out of the marriage over dinner at a restaurant she had been wanting to go to, which was really sad and painful to watch, frankly. Then a bus is heading up the highway and you know she's on it, never to be seen again in the film. Fast-forward to the end, and he marries the other girl in spite of the fact that her father hates him. She looks quite happy at their wedding reception, but he has that look like he had when he began to lose interest in Lila and the original film ends there, but you know without it being said that the new wife will suffer the same fate as the first. Both women in the 1972 version are the sympathetic characters and Lenny proves to be just a schmuck who only wants something until he actually gets it. The film was a great success, with a lot of nominations and two actors receiving awards, and the acting was brilliant. I was hoping in this version the Farrelly brothers would lend some actual comedy to the story, but for me it didn't happen, and I have to agree with most of those bad reviews. Someone who's never seen the original would obviously have a different perspective and might actually enjoy this film, but I didn't.

It's difficult to not compare The Heartbreak Kid to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it doesn't do well in that comparison. The latter outperforms the former in nearly every possible way. Ben Stiller isn't at his funniest here, but he does manage to do OK in a few funny moments. Michelle Monaghan was the bright spot for me, she is a great young actress and handles romantic comedies just as well as she does any other genre of movie.Ultimately, The Heartbreak Kid just isn't as funny as it should have been. There were only a few laugh out loud scenes, and there were long stretches of the movie that were just boring. The story was as predictable as possible, and none of the actors really seemed to be trying that hard. Rob Corddry, Carlos Mencia, Jerry Stiller, Danny McBride...they're all just doing the exact same bits that you've seen them do before. I have to admit that Mencia was kinda funny, though. And as far as the R rating goes, it doesn't really add much to the comedy. There's some nudity, sex, and cursing, but none of that makes the movie any funnier/better. Sure, I'm not gonna complain about seeing Malin Akerman's goods, but if that's your reason for seeing this movie, you'd do better to track down her scenes from Entourage. You're guaranteed to have a better time watching those.

I found this movie to be hysterical! I didn't even realize it existed until 2011. I was up late one night and I came across The Heartbreak Kid on one of my movie channels. Since it had Stiller in the film, i thought i'd give it a look. Next thing i know, i couldn't turn it off because i was laughing so hard. I laughed till i cried during certain parts. Few days later, i went and purchased the DVD. In 2014, i began putting together an extensive Blu-ray collection and I made sure that there were certain Farrely Bros films in my library. Those movies included, Dumb & Dumber, Me Myself & Irene, Kingpin, Something about Mary, Fever Pitch & Heartbreak Kid. I drew a lot of parallels from the HBK flick because I experienced an eerily similar situation in a past relationship. I was pretty surprised when I saw some reviews on this movie. Perhaps if those individuals had an experience similar to mine, they'd see the real humor in it, as I do. Then again, maybe it's just me. ;)

I hate this movie. My wife hates it too. We are watching it on TBS right now. We will probably continue to torture ourselves by continuing to watch it. On TBS. The acting done by Michelle Monaghan is the saving grace of this movie, but even she is only somewhat believable. Ben Stiller is not funny. He has problems. We all have problems, but Ben Stiller's are many and varied. Ben Stiller keeps leaving his wife alone so that he can be with that other woman, played by Michelle Monaghan, whose acting is good but not great. Ben Stiller is a cad. My wife told me that he is a jerk. I agree. She is asking me to change the channel. But the remote might not. We'll see how we are doing in our quest to change the channel. Stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen. There will be an update. We might not finish this movie.