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When Roger Ebert reviewed Danny DeVito’s 1989 adaptation of Warren Adler’s novel The War of the Roses he called it “a black, angry, bitter, unrelenting comedy, a war between the sexes that makes James Thurber's work on the same subject look almost resigned by comparison.” Released during, as Susan Faludi coined it, the backlash era of second wave feminism, The War of the Roses played on everything about 1980s excess and gender, with a healthy dose of the blackest comedy you can get (which DeVito would continue with the criminally underrated Death to Smoochy).

Suffice it to say, time has only made DeVito’s film timelier and explains why the remake, The Roses, is utterly toothless. Directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony MacNamara, himself no stranger to dark humor, The Roses attempts to craft a black comedy for 2025. (Never mind that turning on the news every day brings its own brand of inescapable ironic humor.) But a muddled premise that doesn’t know where to start and stop, coupled with a wild pendulum of performances makes The Roses a splashy A-list vehicle with no one at the wheel.

Theo and Ivy Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, respectively) have had several years of a seemingly happy marriage. But when Theo loses his job in spectacular fashion it’s on Ivy to pay the bills. She takes to opening a restaurant that grows so successful it causes her to be estranged from the family. So when Theo decides he wants a divorce the pair decide to hurt each other however they can, physically if necessary.

Dropping any mention of war or violence in favor of a generic title sets the tone and that continues into the opening scene, wherein Theo and Ivy—tasked by a marriage counselor to name 10 things they like about each other—lob a variety of horrific insults at each other. This moment feels more like a ripoff to the opening of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) than anything. But MacNamara’s script seems hamstrung to make this a movie where the lead characters aren’t despicable, simply frustrated (?) with each other. They punctuate most of their insults, whether jokingly or not, with a comment that they’re British; it’s “repartee,” Theo says. Not only does this come off like the script doesn’t believe Americans will get British humor but it also softens and undercuts the characters at every turn.

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Theo and Ivy exist in a weird limbo where they’re too generic and dull to be compelling and too hokey to be over the top. We see their “meet cute,” more them quickly have sex in a food storage locker, and then getting married. It’s unclear exactly what draws them together, short of a lustful moment, but they make it work for nearly a decade until an important building Theo designs falls apart in a once in a century storm. This causes Ivy—who has seemingly spent her time smiling and baking extravagant desserts for her family without complaint—to finally have an opportunity to go out into the world. The problem is MacNamara’s script has absolutely nothing to say about the dynamic between Theo and Ivy, and this change in their power balance. (This certainly isn’t Fair Play.)

Instead, what it does appear to say is how awful Ivy is for falling in love with her job. We see her being wined and dined, going on jet rides to Los Angeles and falling in love with success. Meanwhile, Theo takes to fat-shaming his kids and turning them into fitness obsessed automatons. Though Theo is positioned as being selfish for his desperation to be the successful one in the family, too often it is Ivy who is the one left to bemoan what a terrible mother she’s been. The movie sets up bigger stakes for her in only to make her feel even worse about her decisions, compared to Theo who, okay, isn’t successful but at least his kids love him!

Cumberbatch and Colman are serviceable in the roles, but neither offers much of a compelling performance as the characters are too generic to be interesting. The only intriguing plot point they have is they’re both shitty people, albeit the movie wants you to think one is slightly worse than the other (hint, it’s not Doctor Strange). Colman is light and bubbly, even when she’s calling someone a variety of four-letter words, while Cumberbatch gives another of his awkwardly charming performances he’s given dozens of times.

The group is surrounded by a variety of characters whose excessiveness only appears to serve the purpose of propping up how bland the Roses themselves actually are. Andy Samberg plays family friend/attorney Barry, the closest equivalent to the Danny DeVito character from the original film. He’s teamed up with Kate McKinnon as Amy, a character whose banter vacillates between insufferably horny and insufferably sensitive. The rest, from Zoe Chao to Ncuti Gatwa, amble into the frame for a few sequences but don’t move the needle much. (Here’s hoping Allison Janney got a lot of money for her lone scene as Ivy’s divorce attorney. Apparently enough to get her a place on the poster.)

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The movie spends so much time with Theo and Ivy starting arguments only to apologize that by the time the third act arrives and knives start flying it’s hard to muster up much enthusiasm. Their kids, who go through a three-year age-up in the movie for no reason at all, admit they’re thrilled their parents are divorcing, saying they should have done it years ago and that’s the problem with The Roses. These aren’t two characters, like Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in the original, who you believe are so tenacious and want what they want that they’ll sink their teeth into each other and refuse to let go. The Roses are just a bland couple who don’t want to divorce because it’s just familiar. God forbid they divorce and actually become interesting. So, when they eventually start pointing guns at each other it’s more shocking because they don’t seem convincing.

The Roses is a great example of 2025 filmmaking wherein the desire to utilize IP, no matter how unfamiliar, and find a story later doesn’t work. The War of the Roses was such a big, outlandish movie that fit nicely into its time period and had a director like DeVito who wasn’t afraid to bring the macabre and the humor. The Roses doesn’t have much humor and isn’t dark at all. It’s like a piece of puff pastry, cute on the outside and absolutely nothing on the inside.

Grade: D+

The Roses hits theaters this Friday.

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