Unlike The Guilt Trip, a dramatic comedy which offers few chuckles, the somewhat clunky family comedy Parental Guidance promises and delivers a host of belly laughs, courtesy of Billy Crystal, who hasn’t had a movie this funny in a long, long time.  And it is Crystal who delivers the laughs, in scenes involving his talent for announcing baseball games and coaxing a child to do his business in the bathroom.

There is bathroom humor in Parental Guidance, something I often despise, but I have to admit that this has some pretty funny stuff.  Some of the comedy is of humiliation or embarrassment, but much of it is creative character comedy, which is, in my view, the best and funniest type of humor — anything which springs from the characters, be it verbal, visual or slapstick.  It is a funny film.

Andy Fickman’s movie is just as structured as most other modern comedies, but it finds and mines the comedy within its structure because it is well written.  It delves into the way kids are being raised these days and mildly questions if perhaps a bit more discipline is in order.  And it does so in very entertaining ways, played broadly by Crystal and Bette Midler, well-matched as “the other grandparents” in their grand-children’s lives.  Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott are fine as the parents trying to raise their kids without negativity, but they are forced to play their roles as straight as can be.  The three kids, on the other hand, are given plenty of leeway to go crazy, and they do, especially when they discover the joys of ice cream cake.

Nothing about Parental Guidance is revolutionary or important, but it is a well made comedy that genuinely fulfills its modest ambitions.  If more movies could fulfill their ambitions there would be a great many happier moviegoers, and critics like me would be superfluous.  Enjoy it!  ☆ ☆ ☆.  1 January 2013.