After setting this scene with a cosy introductory montage – complete with a nursery rhyme-style narration, which garners the movie’s biggest laugh – The Night Before fast-forwards to the modern day. Ethan is pining for his ex. Isaac is on the verge of fatherhood. Chris has become a famous sportsman. The three bros mutually agree that this Christmas Eve will be their final festive night out, and the end of their tradition. Let it be stressed that The Night Before isn’t exactly warm-the-cockles-of-your-heart material. This is a movie where Isaac’s wife Betsy (played by Jillian Bell of 22 Jump Street and Bridesmaids), presents her hubby and the future father of her child with a gift-wrapped collection of drugs to mark his final night with the lads. Yet the film descends drastically into dullness from there, as The Night Before becomes just another generic drug-fuelled night out flick. Clearly designed to play to Seth Rogen’s box-office-friendly strengths, this movie is effectively a stoner comedy parading around in a woolly jumper and calling itself a Christmas movie. There are wild hallucinations, mad mix-ups, and Seth Rogen vomits in the aisle of a Catholic church while wearing a Christmas jumper with a big Star of David on it. Of course, comedy is a hugely subjective medium. There’s every chance you might laugh at gags that I didn’t. I was in a fairly full screening room, though, and there barely ever seemed to be a giggle from any corner of the audience. At one particular moment, when the film clearly pushes for a big boundary pushing gut-buster of a gag, there was nothing more than a disinterested silence from me and those around me. Also, from time to time, The Night Before feels derivative as well as unfunny. A few of Rogen’s hallucinations are very reminiscent of Jump Street, while some corporate sponsorship jokes (Mackie’s Chris has a Red Bull-provided limo) feel like a direct lift from Community’s Subway episodes. There are also references to classic Christmas cinema, which only serve to remind us of the films we could be watching instead. The supporting cast – including Michael Shannon as a drug dealer with a stock of weed that gives you ‘surprisingly accurate visions of the future’ (another of the film’s few laugh-inducing moments) – are mostly given very little to work with, and a few third act cameos fail to brighten up the movie in any significant way. The only real positive here is that director Jonathan Levine frames everything pretty well. There are chases down alleyways, Santa street fights, and even a high-speed limo pursuit. Levine captures all of it with ease, and even adds a certain degree of visual flair. It’s a shame, really, that The Night Before is as weak and uninspiring as it is, then. It’s never fun to write a negative review, but it’s even worse when you can imagine a far better version of the film than the one that ended up on the screen. With such an impressive cast and crew assembled, The Night Before really could have been more than what we actually get. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.