On the Hollywood calendar, the months between January and May are notorious as a sort of black hole for quality film releases. By the middle of January, the holiday films and Oscar-hopefuls that the studios rush out at the end of the year have pretty much all been released, and the beginning of May still marks the beginning of the summer blockbuster season. Still, the studios need to put out something in the meantime, and therefore we get films like Wild Hogs, a road trip/buddy movie that fails to meet even the lowest of expectations.

The plot is sort of a “discount” version of City Slickers. Four suburbanites decide to take their motorcycles for a road trip to the Pacific. Doug Madsen is the dentist having a mid-life crisis, unable to relate to his son; Bobby Davis, the submissive would-be writer with the overbearing spouse; Woody Stevens is broke and being divorced by his supermodel wife; and Dudley Frank is the hopelessly romantic computer geek.

It is Woody who first suggests the road trip, and after some truly boring decision-making, the four friends set out from Cincinnati on the open road heading west. The gang makes one cheesy pit stop after another before finally winding up in the small town of Madrid just in time for the Chili Festival. The town is delightful, but it’s also a hangout for a local bike gang whose bar, Woody admits, he just might have blown up.

There are so many things wrong with this movie that it is hard to know where to start. Being the eternal optimist that I am—or at least try to be—I always look for the good in any movie, and there is some. A few of the jokes elicited a laugh, most notably when Dudley approached the dance floor, and any movie that puts Marisa Tomei in a cowboy hat is not a total waste.

Aside from Tomei, however, this movie is ugly. The script is bad, the acting is bad, and there are even editing flaws that jump off the screen. Perhaps these flaws may go unnoticed to a casual viewer, but to the trained eye these jumps across the 180 degree line—as they say in the biz—are just as painful as getting gored in the buttocks by a raging bull (another poor rip-off of City Slickers).

As for the actors, this is the kind of movie that you sort of have to wonder just what they were thinking when they signed on. Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence are easy to see because—although their best work is far more entertaining—this is the type of movie that has made their careers, and it’s no surprise that they seem the most at home with the material. As for John Travolta, well, let’s be honest, aside from a couple of masterpieces and a few more decent films, most of his movies are duds (Battlefield Earth anyone?). In Wild Hogs he just tries too hard and it comes across as the film’s poorest performance. The biggest surprise to see in this film was William H. Macy, the great character actor who usually pops up in award-worthy films. He seems to be having fun with it, though, and is the most enjoyable of the four.

The film also fails to take advantage of its few cameos. Talents like John C. McGinley and Ray Liotta are pretty much wasted, as well as the film’s big cameo, which I’ll leave secret in case you still feel like seeing this film after reading this glowing review. If not, think of an actor famous for his roles in biker films and you can probably guess who it is.

Over the last few years, it seems that the gap between the winter and summer movie seasons has gotten shorter, but Wild Hogs is just proof that the gap still exists.

Wild Hogs is Rated PG-13 for “crude and sexual content, and some violence.” It’s true. There’s a little bit of each, but nothing excessive.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of Wild Hogs.