Official Synopsis:
An all-star cast stars in this hilarious off-beat comedy about a hapless married man (Dylan Walsh), with a dead-end life in the dead-end town. After he is encouraged by a stranger (Danny DeVito), he begins to dream again and musters the nerve to take back his life and reinvigorate his town.
  
Our Take:
IMDB almost scarred me away from watching Just Add Water. Everything was looking good (the cast) and sounding good (about a nobody who goes nowhere) until it got to the end of the summary at which point, whomever wrote it made it sound like Ray (Dylan Walsh) was going to pull a Walking Tall and take back his rundown town from those nasty meth dealers. Oh good god, please, no.

And while the film does have Ray taking control of his life and not cowering from the meth dealers who run the town, it is, luckily for all of us, nothing in the vein of Walking Tall. Phew! Just Add Water adds up much better than that film. It does an excellent job of showing how bare and lifeless this remote town way of living is. And while most of the characters are rather despicable, Dylan Walsh, Tracy Middendorf and Danny DeVito all play characters that have actual development and interesting back-stories to them.

Just Add Water is a comedy in most respects. It’s not some gut-busting Will Ferrell vehicle, but it does its job enough to keep a smile on your face the whole way through. The only reason this is a slight let down is because it has both Jonah Hill and Justin Long in the cast. These are two guys who are known for their comedic improve, yet we have none of that here. And that is apparently because Hart Bochner (the director) is a stickler for the script and against improv in general, which is kind of a bummer.

There are no special features included on the disc.

Just Add Water is kind of a sleeper hit in the respect that it heralds a high quality cast, went straight to DVD with absolutely no promotion, and still managed to actually be a good movie. It almost blows my mind that things worked out this well.

Overall Picture:
Movie: B
DVD: C

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer