It has been a while since we have heard from director Garry Marshall but after his last helpings of Valentine’s Day and New Years Eve he once again brings to the screen a movie based around a calendar Holiday in Mother’s Day and once again we get an ensemble cast of characters with multi plot lines which start to click in together as the movie progresses.

This time we see Kristin (Britt Robertson) who is planning to get married to Zack (Jack Whitehall) but the fact that she was given up for adoption at birth is holding her back. She is encouraged by her friend Jesse (Kate Hudson) to track down her mother. However, Kristen has already done so but is scared to take the next step as her mother is successful TV personality Miranda Collins (Julia Roberts). Miranda is all business but in her search for a new assistant she is drawn towards divorced mother of two Sandy (Jennifer Hudson) as she feels her own guilt over giving her child up. Sandy is struggling since her ex-husband Henry (Timothy Olyphant) is re-marrying a much younger woman. The aforementioned Jessie is also trying to build bridges with her own mother who she rarely sees but this is proving difficult as her mother is unaware that she has married a man of Indian heritage Russell (Aasif Mandyi) and her sister, Gabi (Sarah Chalke) is gay and has married her partner without telling her mother, plus there are two grandchildren to throw into the mix. Bradley Barton (Jason Sudekis) a widow who is successful from a business point of view but is struggling as a lone parent, whom Sandy is taking an interest in.

So, you have a cauldron of people and personalities who all vie for screen time but because there is so much going on you never get a chance to really take a liking to any of the characters unlike some of Marshalls earlier movies such as Pretty Woman, Beaches or Frankie And Johnny.

Somehow all these people seem to be intertwined yet it’s never really explained why. How is Jesse seemingly friends with both Kristin and Sandy despite them being three different generations in age? How does Zack win a stand up comedy competition despite not telling single joke in the final? Why is Sandy such a nice person even though she is essentially being replaced as a mother by a younger woman? I know its Hollywood but give us some credit for having a certain level of intelligence and having at least one foot set in the real world. I can switch my brain off to a degree when I need to but to accept or enjoy this script it felt like I’d have needed a lobotomy. There is just too much crammed into the two hour run time for any real moments of drama, compassion or even joy and if there had have been a focus on one of two of the characters instead there might have been something decent on screen.

So how exactly would I describe this movie in simple terms? Like a two hour bus journey where the best course of action you can take is to zone out and switch off until you reach the end, yes it is that bad.

DJ Speaks Rating: 3.5 Out Of 10