When I saw the cover for this movie I was a bit excited as I saw Neil Patrick Harris was on the cast. So it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch this movie.

And now that I have seen it, I sit with an overwhelming sensation that just screams "was this movie really necessary?" The storyline told in "The Best and the Brightest" is fairly easy, almost too simple actually. A family moves to New York and have to find a kindergarten for their daughter. Then in order to get into this fancy kindergarten, events start to unfold and roll downhill, escalating into something bigger and bigger. The deeper the parents go in, the harder it gets to come clean.

The cast list, does hold some rather good names, and some performances were actually alright. However, I was really, really disappointed with Neil Patrick Harris's (playing Jeff) performance in the movie, it was so tame compared to how he was in previous movies and TV series. Peter Serafinowicz (playing Clark) and Jenna Stern (playing Katharine Heilmann) were the ones carrying the weight of the movie and making it bearable to sit through. And the role and performance of Christopher McDonald (playing The Player) was a really good injection of comedy for the movie. He is just superb.

Now, as for a comedy, there were surprisingly few places throughout the movie that had me laughing. Sure there were lots of scenes that could have been made to force laughter, but failed to do so. So I wouldn't go out and watch this with the intention to be entertained for the sake of laughs.

"The Best and the Brightest" is, sadly, one of those movies that comes by, dies off silently in the night, and is quietly forgotten.

Sometimes it is enough to be clever rather than actually be talented in something. Sometimes you just do anything to get what you want. And that is what this couple is all about. The actors make this more fun than it actually has a right to be. Too many clichés, choices to interrupt conversations that do not make any sense (other than "being funny" and interruptive) and other stuff like that.

The characters are simple and the setting is too. You'll see where this is going from very early on. Some nice jokes aside this might bore some people, if they are not convinced by the actors as well. Decent try, but needed work on script level.

I shut it off after 31 minutes. I decided to register and logon at minute 13. It is unbearable. The characters are straight out of sitcoms. There is no more loathsome character than whoever Amy Sedaris is trying to be. Every headmistress of the schools is the dimmest cow each one dimmer and more awful than the last. I really can't tell you more than that because it is so awful. We get it, really we do. Getting your snowflake into a private Manhattan kindergarten is harder than winning every Nobel prize a Pulitzer an Oscar and a MacArthur genius grant on the same say while giving birth to the Messiah and successfully operating the world's biggest hedge fund.