Wild Hogs is a curious movie. On the one hand, the comedy — about a quartet of friends who hit the
road in a rather vaguely defined attempt to reclaim their youthful,
masculine spirits — is driven by overly demonstrative sitcom-type
acting, anchored by a number of flat, desultory set pieces, and set to
all the music cues (Foghat’s “Slow Ride,” George Thorogood & The
Destroyers’ “Who Do You Love,” AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” The Allman
Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider”) you wholly expect. For Chrissakes, it even has an
atrocious sequence in which
someone on a computer inadvertently stumbles across a deviant sex web
site only to then be unable to shut
it down, despite their mad pressing of buttons and checking of cables.
(We’re just over two months into 2007, and, alongside Diane Keaton’s Because I Said So,
we’ve already had two such idiotic scenes unleashed upon audiences;
current Vegas over-under odds place the year’s cumulative,
sigh-inducing tally at seven.)

On the other hand, if a movie can ever be described as, say, a single notch greater than the expected sum of
its disingenuous parts, that might be the best way to explain the
fleeting entertainment that Wild Hogs provides. There definitely isn’t much in the way of insight into the “weekend warrior” mentality that purportedly serves as Wild Hogs‘ narrative lynchpin, and the film certainly won’t provide memorable
laughs that will stick with you much beyond the day of viewing. Still,
through pure contrast of character, some nice contributions from bit
players (thank you, Marisa Tomei!), a very few unexpected avenues of brief exploration and a
couple of comedic showcases which allow Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen to flaunt their demonstrative, small screen-fed personas, Wild Hogs plays as a pleasingly broad diversion, provided one’s level of anticipation is properly adjusted a good bit downwards. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.