Dinner for Schmucks

Corporate executive must bring an unsuspecting fool to a dinner party where the biggest idiot wins a prize.  Inconsequential comedy is forgettable, for the most part, and not especially funny.  As the star imbecile, Steve Carell mugs for the camera in a desperate attempt to wring laughs from the lightweight script.  An IRS agent, he makes dioramas with dead mice dressed like people in his  spare time.  Despite being a device to make him look ridiculous, they’re actually kind of charming.  Redeems itself somewhat in the last act with a more involving turn of events when several comedians get a chance to shine at the climactic get-together.  An improvement over the original, more mean spirited, French farce in which the protagonists never even made it to the banquet.  Except by then, it‘s too little, too late.  Not a horrible movie, but not a particularly memorable one either.