Synopsis: The story focuses on 37-year-old single business executive Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey), who suddenly finds herself with strong maternal yearnings. But she is told she has only a million-in-one chance to conceive, disheartening news that sends her straight to a surrogacy agency whose pretentious owner (Sigourney Weaver) hooks her up with Angie (Amy Poehler), a low-rent working girl with a loser husband (Dax Shepard) who has decided she should become a surrogate as part of a get rich quick scheme. When Kate learns Angie is indeed pregnant, she starts preparing for the blessed arrival. What she doesn’t is expect is for Angie to land on her doorstep saying she has nowhere else to go. This sets up a female version of “The Odd Couple” as Angie’s trailer-trash lifestyle clashes repeatedly with Kate’s ordered existence. Despite the differences, the unlikely pair learns to accept each other and strike up a tentative friendship all in the name of baby-to-be.

Acting: Considering the fact that Fey and Poehler worked together on “Saturday Night Live” and developed unique comic timing as anchors of the “Weekend Update” skit, the chemistry they exhibit here in their first on-screen teaming should not come as a surprise. They are absolutely hilarious together as the screen’s latest – and greatest – odd couple (OK, next to the originals, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon). Fey, in particular, has a nice Mary Tyler Moore quality to her, grounding her comedy in reality and creating an extremely likeable presence either on the big screen or small, as she proves weekly in “30 Rock.” Surrounding the two leads is a swell cast of comic vets led by Weaver, a riot as the 50-something baby-obsessed surrogate agency head who likes to remind her clients that she is still fertile. Offering nifty support on the male side are Greg Kinnear as a nice lawyer-turned-juice bar owner Kate develops an attraction to; Romany Malco as the apartment doorman who likes to commiserate with the tenants; and Shepard as Poehler’s n’er do well common law husband. Steve Martin also shows up for an amusing turn as Kate’s boss – a silver-hair, pony-tailed new age owner of a chain of organic food markets.

Direction: For what is essentially a chick flick, it’s a bit surprising to learn Baby Mama was written and directed by a man, Michael McCullers, who acquits himself nicely in his feature debut behind the camera. Some of that may be due to the fact he, too, is a “SNL” writing alum and speaks the same kind of improvisational language as his stars. As co-screenwriter of the Austin Powers films with another “SNL” grad, Mike Myers, McCullers clearly knows a thing or two about screen comedy. His experience shows in his effective and easy-going work on Baby Mama, which despite constant contemporary references, feels in some way like a throwback to the more genteel movie comedies of the ’50s and ’60s – right down to the peppy musical score and bright technicolored look of the film. Key for making his vision work is in casting. When you’ve got pros like these working for you, what could possibly go wrong?

Bottom line: Hollywood.com rating: 3 stars

Synopsis: Yes, that’s right. BFF’s Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are indeed endearing in their own pot-smoking, crass, totally inept way – and movie No. 2 continues to prove it. It starts a couple hours after they’ve successfully completed their White Castle quest, with Harold’s vow to follow his lady love to Amsterdam. At the airport, Kumar runs into his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) and is shocked to discover she’s about to get married to a guy he considers a real “douche bag.” But once they make it onto the plane, all manner of hell breaks loose: Mistaken for terrorists (yes, it does have something to do with marijuana and a bong), the two end up escaping from Guantanamo Bay and embarking on one outrageous misadventure after another to clear their names – and wreck Vanessa’s wedding in the process. High times, dude!

Acting: It’s funny that this week’s new movies feature two sets of odd couples: Baby Mama’s Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and the reteaming of Penn and Cho, who simply click on all cylinders as the pot-smoking former college roommates who couldn’t be more different yet so connected. Even though you cringe at the ridiculous predicaments they find themselves in, these two guys sell it lock, stock and barrel. Supporting them is “Daily Show’s” Rob Corddry, who overplays it as the hard-ass bigoted Homeland Security agent going after the boys. But it’s the weird characters they meet along the way that make the Harold and Kumar movies, including “The Office’s” Ed Helms as an interpreter; Missi Pyle as a forward-thinking Southern hick; and, of course, Neil Patrick Harris, once again playing himself as a debauched, mushroom-taking, unicorn-spotting moron. Harris’ appearance in the first Harold and Kumar showed everyone just how funny he is, leading to his hilarious turn in the hit TV show “How I Met Your Mother.” This just solidifies it.

Direction: Writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg probably never thought they’d be back again after their first Harold & Kumar Goes to White Castle effort. But here they are, doing it all over again. Maybe it was a fluke the original touched a comical nerve in those Gen-X slackers who made H&K the new Cheech and Chong, but there’s something to be said for a good old-fashioned stoner movie. Unfortunately for Guantanamo Bay, however, Hurwitz and Schlossberg try to outdo themselves by making it even more raunchy (the “bottom-less” party is quite something), more offensive (the mongoloid cycloptic lovechild of hick incestuous parents) and more ridiculous (smoking out with President Bush?) than it should be. That simplicity of the original is lost. But don’t worry, Guantanamo Bay isn’t a complete wash. You’ll still laugh plenty.

Bottom line: Hollywood.com rating: 2 1/2 stars