Date Night

Tina Fey and Steve Carell are, as she puts it, “just a boring married couple from New Jersey,” whose attempt to spice up their marriage backfires into a wacky adventure of mistaken identity. Josh Klausner’s script offers the requisite action-comedy hoops to be jumped through, but there is also the additional obstacle of Shawn Levy’s halting direction; all the set pieces seem like nothing but setup, and even the end-credits outtakes, in which the cast members crack each other up, seem halfhearted and obligatory. Similarly, much star power has been squandered here, with Taraji P. Henson, Ray Liotta, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Common, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig and Mila Kunis in small supporting roles. Thank goodness, then, that the well-paired leads are as charming and, yes, relatable, as ever. They’re not really boring, even if the movie is.