A raunchy, broad buddy-comedy with a few big laughs and a surprisingly soft center, but it’s also uneven and often feels like it’s forcing chaos instead of building it. If you like crude, high-energy studio comedy and don’t mind stupidity as a primary joke engine, it can work; if you want sharper writing or… Read more
10% ★☆☆☆☆ (10,124)
Little Brother
Where to watch: In Theaters
Movie · Comedy · R
2026 · 1h 41m · ★ 10% (10K)
An uncomfortably touching comedy.
Director: Matt Spicer
Starring: John Cena, Eric André, Michelle Monaghan
Overview
A tightly wound realtor's picture-perfect life gets an extreme makeover when his lovably chaotic "little brother" suddenly reappears.
Director
Matt Spicer
Production
Middle Child Pictures
Cast
John Cena, Eric André, Michelle Monaghan, Christopher Meloni, Sherry Cola, Ego Nwodim, Caleb Hearon, Bryce Gheisar, Pilot Bunch, Ben Ahlers, Sophia Bunnell, Christina Catechis, Brett Azar, Brian Keane, Tony Torn, Dani Deetté, Christopher Woodley, Maximo Salas, Colter Ford, Eddie Cooper
Where to watch
Netflix
Curator Review
Verdict
A raunchy, broad buddy-comedy with a few big laughs and a surprisingly soft center, but it’s also uneven and often feels like it’s forcing chaos instead of building it. If you like crude, high-energy studio comedy and don’t mind stupidity as a primary joke engine, it can work; if you want sharper writing or consistent momentum, it probably won’t.
Best for
fans of raunchy R-rated comedies
viewers who enjoy wrestler-actor charisma
people in the mood for dumb-but-occasionally-funny chaos
audiences who don’t mind gross-out humor and tonal whiplash
Skip if
you want tightly written comedy
you’re turned off by explicit sexual gross-out gags
you prefer subtle character humor over broad antics
you’re looking for a consistently clever or polished studio comedy
Overview
Little Brother is the kind of comedy that knows exactly how low it’s willing to go, then keeps going anyway. The setup is simple and familiar: a buttoned-up life gets wrecked by an unruly outsider, and the movie leans hard on escalation, humiliation, and public-disaster set pieces to keep the engine running.
Worth noting
What helps it survive its own stupidity is the central pairing. John Cena and Eric André give the movie a goofy, mismatched energy that can be genuinely funny when the script lets them riff or collide instead of just piling on shock value. There’s also a faintly sweet undercurrent that keeps it from becoming pure noise, even if the film often mistakes volume for wit.
Bottom line
Still, this is a very uneven watch. The jokes land in bursts rather than a steady stream, and the movie’s rough edges are hard to ignore. It’s best approached as disposable raunch-comedy comfort food: sometimes crude, sometimes charming, and rarely as smart as it thinks it is.
Top Letterboxd reviews
JoshuaCaine (2★) · 877 likes
Seeing John Cena getting his ass eaten out was not on my bingo card for today
Geoff Ketchum (2★) · 489 likes
"Call me the trash heap from Fraggle Rock." Objectively, this is a terrible movie. Yet, I laughed out loud twice, including once in the final credits. It gets a bonus star for the Fraggle Rock line.
cob (1.5★) · 351 likes
the things i do for caleb hearon
ky (3★) · 350 likes
BLOOPERS IN THE CREDITS FINALLY!!!
Rose Rainmaker (3★) · 305 likes
It's a little like "What About Bob", but only if Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray were C- versions of themselves. Of course, that was enough for me. 3 stars!!!