‘The Fabulous Four’ Review: Beaches (and Lots of Mojitos)

“The Fabulous Four” stars Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally as old pals who cut loose during a bachelorette weekend in Key West.

Marilyn (Midler), a recent widow, is marrying a guy she just met at the D.M.V. But first, she’s itching to grind on an exotic male dancer. In the last year and a half, this kind of all-star girls trip flick has become its own genre (see also: “80 for Brady,” “Summer Camp” and “Book Club: The Next Chapter”). This one, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and written by Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly, is the raunchiest and loopiest so far. Slapdash but executed with gusto, “Fabulous Four” feels like it was made after guzzling three bottles of champagne — and honestly, that’s an apropos way to watch.

The central conflict is that Marilyn is a self-absorbed TikTok influencer and Lou (Sarandon), a self-righteous stick in the mud who considers her estranged best friend’s wedding a personal affront. Lou blames Marilyn for turning her into a lonely cat lady — and, fittingly, gets tricked into the vacation by a phony claim that she’s won one of Ernest Hemingway’s polydactyl felines, descendants of his six-toed pet Snowball that continue to roam the grounds of the author’s former Florida home. (Sarandon’s saucer eyes light up endearingly as she clutches a pet carrier to her chest.)

Rounding out the foursome are Kitty (Ralph), a cannabis farmer with a born-again daughter (Brandee Evans) who wants to stick her in a religious retirement home (“Heaven’s Gate?” Kitty groans, “More like hell on earth”) and Alice (Mullally), a lusty singer who roams the margins of the plot blurting as many gasp-inducing one-liners as she can.

The jokes dance right on the edge of what you’re willing to giggle at in a matinee with your mother-in-law. Somehow when Lou meets a love interest (Bruce Greenwood) who happens to be clutching one of Key West’s famous wild chickens, the script restrains itself from a wisecrack about his rooster. There’s a little too much reliance on half-baked physical comedy. Midler kicks up her heels with such pizazz that her shoes literally go flying offscreen; later, she twerks, and she’s pretty good. More impressively, she and her fellow professionals do their utmost to add at least one layer to their caricatures. Midler allows her narcissist’s vulnerability to poke through, while Sarandon, tasked to look severe, wins us over every time she loosens up. (One scene has her blitzed on edibles and hallucinating a cat performing heart surgery.)