Life Of The Party Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

Another lame Melissa McCarthy vehicle.

By Jack Pooley /

Warner Bros.

Melissa McCarthy's new comedy Life of the Party is out in cinemas now, though given the general lack of publicity and total absence of pre-release reviews, you'd be forgiven for not even noticing.

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The movie, which stars McCarthy as a middle-aged mother who goes back to college after a messy divorce - the same college as her freshman daughter, no less - is unsurprisingly scoring largely negative reviews from those few critics who've ventured out to see it so far.

While there was certainly potential for this to be a refreshingly feminist spin on the 2003 classic comedy Old School - just as the recent Blockers cleverly retooled American Pie for millennials - it ultimately rarely rises above forgettable mediocrity. A missed opportunity, indeed.

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As a theatrical release, it's difficult to recommend unless you're an especially devoted McCarthy fan with a ton of time to kill. Otherwise you're better off just saving it for streaming, if even at all...