Life of the Party

       Life of the Party is about Deanna, a mom who, after her husband asks for a divorce, decides to go back to college and finish her archeology degree. Her daughter, Maddie, isn't too happy about it at first, but eventually, she and her sorority sisters accept Deanna into their friend group as they try to help her navigate the wonders and hardships of college life
       This movie stars Melissa Mcarthy as Deanna, the mid-life crisis mother trying to get over her horrible husband through college. There is a specific dialect of humor that is used almost every time Mcarthy stars in a movie and at this point, it's a cliche. It is rather hard to define, but just know that using her body and pain towards her is a comedic crutch and it is employed in this movie. It's still somewhat humorous despite its overuse. Also, when a comedy of this type of "college life" premise comes out, there tends to be a certain set of cliches and tropes that get used, but with the added mix of Mcarthy humor, it makes for a somewhat unique viewing.
       This movie is super hilarious. The entire audience in my theater was busting out their guts and I was too. Despite Mcarthy's humor being overdone, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a little bit. Unfortunately, this is one of the few aspects of the movie that saves it from being a disaster.
        As far as the story goes, the only important plot points are the divorce and the mom dealing with college. This would make for an interesting narrative, but most of the screen time is devoted to Deanna going to frat parties and shacking it up with a guy half her age. You know how some people drink to forget their problems? That's essentially what this movie is about, except the mom is doing it at college with a support group.
         This support group consists of Maddie and her sorority sisters, and they help Deanna, but they all are completely one dimensional. I mean, it's not wrong for them to be, but if Deanna wasn't already a bland character, then the rest of the supporting cast wouldn't feel like dead weight. Also, there is a stereotypical "bully" character that goes absolutely nowhere and is completely unnecessary.
          By far, however, my biggest problem with this movie was the crutch on humor. Its certainly funny, but every single scene had one half that was plot relevant and another that was just comedy. Its as if they came up with so many funny scene ideas that they didn't want to scrap any of them so they decided to just stuff them all into the movie instead. This would be fine, but it happens in every. single. scene. I don't know if I'm describing this frustration that well, but if you understand what I'm trying to say then great.
          Life of the Party offers some great and gut-busting humor, but this comes at the expense of having a coherent plot. It's a nice movie that you and the "guys and gals" will probably want to see and I think that pretty much characterizes the tone of this movie. 6/10