Me Time

Exasperated parents deserve a break, but none of them deserve Me Time, a parade of labored and predictable gags about letting loose and growing old.

This broad mix of quirks and pratfalls generates some scattered big laughs and yields some amusing buddy-comedy chemistry between Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg. However, the script isn’t worthy of their talents.

Hart plays Sonny, who is happily married to his architect wife, Maya (Regina Hall), and covets his role as a suburban stay-at-home dad for their two preteens. Wild times with his childhood best friend, Huck (Wahlberg), are in his past.

Even as they’ve grown apart, devoted bachelor Huck hasn’t caught the hint, so he invites Sonny to his 44th birthday party, promising next-level thrills enabling them to reconnect. Sonny isn’t having it. “Our lives have nothing in common anymore,” he reasons.

Nevertheless, Maya is supportive, proposing to take the kids to her parents’ house for the weekend, giving Sonny some time to himself. But his solo plans backfire, and so of course he jets to the desert for Huck’s bash, where he’s quickly attacked by a mountain lion.

Meanwhile, Sonny becomes jealous as a colleague (Luis Gerardo Mendez) makes a move for Maya. That prompts a plea for compassion from Huck, whose arrested development is marked by a freewheeling bravado that masks his insecurities and regrets.

A handful of death-defying escapes and morally ambiguous adventures later, both men learn lessons about trust, pressure, responsibility, and the value of chilling out.

Poking fun at contemporary masculinity, the screenplay by director John Hamburg (I Love You, Man) pays tribute to the enduring bonds of male friendship without offering any fresh insight or emotional depth.

The ubiquitous Hart plays another version of his lovable bumbling motormouth with neurotic charm. Still, even if Sonny’s midlife crisis is relatable in theory, the film quickly becomes detached from reality.

In fact, Huck’s antics are so heightened from beginning to end that there’s no room for their relationship to evolve. Without any credible back story, their codependent partnership is eroded from the get-go.

Me Time is ultimately about balancing commitments to family and friends — even when they drive you crazy. Yet with such uninspired execution, hopefully the film won’t spawn any offspring.

Rated R, 104 minutes.