Hog mild

According to Walt Becker's "Wild Hogs," the easiest way to get over a mid-life crisis is to get four of your underachieving friends, some motorcycles and an air mattress that only sleeps three. Leave wives and cell phones behind. Adequate clothing is optional.\nThis movie opens with four separate sequences showcasing just how lame the characters have become in their middle-aged lives. Woody (John Travolta) has lost everything in a messy divorce; Doug (Tim Allen) doesn't have the respect of his own son; Bobby (Martin Lawrence) has a crap job and is afraid to stand up to his wife; and Dudley (William H. Macy) is a nerdy computer programmer who is afraid to talk to women. All four men decide to take their motorcycles on the road to reclaim their lives and their manliness.\nThis is an above-par buddy movie. Marketed (and seemingly made) for aging baby boomers, there is still enough slapstick humor and gross out jokes for the sixth-grader in everyone (the method of Dudley "doing his business" in the woods is hilarious).\nThe characters are well-developed and mesh together nicely. Established character actor Macy is the best part of the film, as he plays a role normally reserved for the likes of such buffoons like Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell. Ray Liotta turns in the second-best performance of the movie as the leader of vicious motorcycle gang, "The Del Fuegos." \nThere are great cameos as well from the likes of John. C. McGinnley ("Scrubs") and one-half of Tenacious D. The biggest cameo by far is Mr. "Easy Rider" himself, Peter Fonda.\nA detraction from this movie: It's highly predicable. Right down to the soundtrack (which includes AC/DC's "Highway to Hell") to the stereotypical biker bars, you have seen this all before.\nAlso, Fonda serves as a sad statement of the baby boomer generation. "Easy Rider" was about finding America on the open road. Forty years later, the establishment that "Easy Rider" resisted so much is now the norm. The hipsters lost, and Fonda is here to make sure everyone knows that.\nOverall, "Wild Hogs" is just OK. While the laughs are here, it's hard for the typical college student to relate to these men as they enter their mid-life crisis. My advice, wait until the DVD. Your parents will love it.