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I was never a huge fan of Will Ferrell's. To me, he's just like Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler in that he hasn't outgrown adolescent status when it comes to his sense of humor. However, seeing him in Wedding Crashers, The Producers, and Talladega Nights recently forced me to appreciate the comedic talent that he's been hiding. And now, with Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell has forced me to acknowledge that he can act. And quite well, too, which was a very pleasant surprise. Luckily, the movie was just as good as he was.

Playing Harold Crick, an IRS agent without a social life who counts his toothbrush strokes each and every morning of his life, Will Ferrell is marvelously understated. Some critics have said he underplays Crick to the point of boredom, but I think he leaves enough of himself to keep us entertained. And even with that, the plot and characters around him are so amusing and intriguing it wouldn't have mattered if Crick were dull.

The story kicks off to a start within the first five minutes as we embark on Crick's daily routine, narrated down to the very last carefully counted step on his way to work by Emma Thompson, a suicidal writer who is authoring her next book about Crick and his humdrum way of living. However, Crick hears her voice dictating his every move and is upset by this- naturally. Especially when he hears Thompson predicting his premature death.

Forster deftly balances Harold's impending doom with his discovery of the joys of life, most importantly in Ana Pascal, a baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (wonderful and fiery), who at first hates Crick and his IRS background but then grows to love him. Through Pascal, Harold learns how to enjoy life outside of his job, which he never enjoyed in the first place. The genius of Stranger Than Fiction is that it manages to take matters of life and death very seriously while at the same time finding much light in simple everyday facets of the world such as cookies or a kiss or a good book. I'm not sure how you combine existentialism and compassion in the same movie, but Forster and Ferrel and Co. pulled it off in a very creative way.

I don't see the point of a movie that goes to great lengths to tell a story that says nothing. When you have the money to give attention to great production values and employ a top-notch cast, why would you waste it on a pointless story? I was only mildly entertained by this film, mostly thanks to Jimmy Stewart and his as-per-usual impeccable acting, but when the ending came and there was no payoff, I found that what little entertainment present was not satisfying enough to make up for it.

Good ol' Jimmy Stewart is Paul Biegler, a lawyer that was recently ousted from his position as district attorney by some younger blood. Biegler comes upon the case of Lt. Manion (Ben Gazzara), accused of murdering the man that raped his wife (Lee Remick), and Biegler, hesitant at first, decides to take it, defending Manion with an insanity plea. This insanity plea could have led to some good drama, indicting the justice system as containing too many loopholes for guilty men. Instead, the movie continues the story without focusing on this and misses the chance to make the point.

Here at the beginning, the movie shows promise. The actors prove to be very good from the very start. Stewart, who was often unjustly accused of lacking versatility, is actually quite different from the George Bailey everyone knows; the difference in Stewart's characters is always subtle, but it's there nonetheless, and he received an Oscar nomination for his subtlety. Here he seems weathered and jaded, but still good-natured and sensible. Lee Remick begins the movie wonderfully as a carefree femme fatale who doesn't properly react to her husband's incarceration. The scenes between Remick and Stewart are the best in the movie as she flirts with him and seemingly looks to seduce him; however, the film doesn't follow through on this, as with so many other things. Halfway through the movie, the script seems to forget that Stewart and Remick had such good chemistry and removes from our sight any juicy scenes with the two of them.

The trial part of the movie is entertaining enough, even though it falls into the cliché of overly loud laughter from the court audience whenever the judge or attorney makes a joke, but it still left me longing for more. George C. Scott, who was nominated for an Academy Award inexplicably, adds barely anything to the movie. Scott is definitely a great actor (see Patton), but he's greatly underused here as the lawyer the district attorney brings in to help with the case. All he manages to get across is that his character is a snob.

And then at the end of the trial, the ruling is given and that's that. Is it too much to expect something more from a movie? I understand there are movies that are made specifically for entertainment, but this is not one of them- there is nothing so entertaining here to rest an entire movie on it. I know it's adapted from a novel so I don't really know if the author of the book is to blame or the filmmakers, but it doesn't really matter who's to blame- the movie still isn't good.

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn sure know how to have fun. They seem to bounce off of each other with ease and pleasure, milking each scene for all it's worth. That pleasure is contagious in this movie, a buddy comedy that turns into a romantic comedy with a little bit of drama mixed in and a pinch of Will Ferrell to spice things up in the last act- all of which blends together quite nicely, which really is no surprise at all considering the talent involved.

Vaughn and Wilson are marriage counselors (how these characters ever got into this field of work is beyond me- beyond them too, probably) who spend a few months each year crashing weddings (i.e. attending weddings without invitation and singling out a young woman, one for each man, for a night of "fun"; after all, women are more prone to give in to a charming man in light of the passions brought about by weddings, and the two men don't see any harm in taking advantage of this). Their characters, Jeremy Grey and John Beckwith respectively, are so serious about wedding crashing that they have a whole list of rules and a specific season in which they can crash. Unfortunately for the two of them, at a wedding late in the season, both of them end up involved with girls they can't seem to get away from.

And this is where the romantic comedy comes into play. Until this point, all the funny came from the banter back and forth between Wilson and Vaughn (who, by the way, should form their own improv duo), but Isla Fisher steals every scene she's in as a sex-obsessed daughter of a government official (Christopher Walken) who has her heart (and body) set on Jeremy. This is a case where going over the top was exactly what was needed, and Isla Fisher delivers with gusto. Rachel McAdams has a plainer and less flashy role as Fisher's sister and, coincidentally, the woman that steals Owen Wilson's heart right out from under him, but she, as usual, is still quite good. Will Ferrell makes a cameo appearance near the end as the man that invented wedding crashing, and his performance deserves to be seen for how terribly wrong it is and yet how funny it still manages to be.

The cast is better than the movie though, which is not an entirely bad thing. Instead of weighing us down with a deep message about the power of love and love conquering all, Wedding Crashers lets its actors run wild. Though it's not without its morals- it celebrates having fun and political incorrectness, but it also has an understanding of a person's limits and responsibilities to himself and those he cares about. But really, a movie like this is just a playground for the talent involved. And boy is it fun to watch them play.