‘Parental Guidance’ does the shtick

By Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

The family-friendliest movie comedy this holiday season is also the sappiest and schmaltziest.

And thanks to Billy Crystal, the shtickiest.

“Parental Guidance” is a mild-mannered riff on parenting, then-and-now. It contrasts the top-down/career-first mentality of one generation with the coddled “nurturing” of today, but never takes a stand on which is better.

Basically, it’s a vehicle for Billy Crystal, and to a lesser degree Bette Midler, to riff on the spoiled, over-indulged and sometimes uptight kids their kid is raising.

Artie (Crystal) is a minor league baseball announcer who never got to his dream job, covering San Francisco Giants games. He’s content to make homespun wisecracks in front of the mike for the Fresno Grizzlies. Until they lay him off before being not hip.

His retired “weather girl” wife, Diane, interrupts her pole-dance aerobics class to comfort him and listen to his lies about how young he “feels.”

Daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei) is a web designer living in Atlanta with husband Phil (Tom Everett Scott) in the totally computerized house Phil designed.

Their kids — 12, 8 and 5 — have play dates, ball games and rehearsals.

Whatever Artie and Diane did with Alice isn’t good enough for Alice’s kids. She takes their finicky dinner orders, by text. The kids aren’t allowed sugar, are ferried hither and yon to appointments — touchy-feely speech therapy for Turner, violin lessons from a Russian “Tiger Mom” for Harper. Tofu mom Alice never lets them hear the word “No.”

There are sparks between generations, but with the exception of Madison, the child actors are in over their heads and the adults seem as if they’ve just met. At least the sentimental stuff works. And the toilet jokes.

“Parental Guidance”: grade: C; running time: 1:40; rating: PG for some rude humor