Misadventures and mayhem, but no surprises

EVERYONE'S been wanting to crash the girls-gone-wild party since Bridesmaids netted US$288 million at the global box office in 2011 besides two Academy Award nominations.

There were the over-worked, under-appreciated mothers of Bad Moms last year. Snatched recently had its own middle-aged mum and lovelorn daughter on a madcap jungle adventure. Girls Trip is also still in cinemas.

And on their spiked heels arrives Rough Night with its bride-to-be and college pals, reuniting a decade later for a bachelorette weekend in Miami: the night of debauchery culminates in a dead male stripper, the blood from a hole in his head spilling across the polished marble floor of the girls' rented beach house.

Scarlett Johansson is the betrothed Jess. She is an aspiring politician, running for state senate. Imagine the scandal!

Jillian Bell is Jess' possessive, insecure freshman roommate Alice, a schoolteacher. Ilana Glazer is lesbian activist Frankie. Her former lover Blair, played by Zoë Kravitz, is a swanky divorced-with-son realtor. Joining the foursome is Kate McKinnon as loopy Pippa, the Australian chum from Jess' semester abroad and Alice's rival for the status of Jess' BFF.

Their R-rated Hollywood black comedy is The Hangover (2009) with prettier stars, apologies to Bradley Cooper.

Alternately, it is a gender-reverse Very Bad Things (1990), in which a prostitute was killed during a bachelor party hosted by Jon Favreau. Either way it is scattershot with the usual cocaine misadventures and drunken mayhem as the panicky quintet contrive to dispose of the body ... and the body keeps resurfacing.

To be sure, the top-notch comic ensemble are fun. It's especially nice to see Johansson cut loose and show she is no mere Ghost in the Shell or a super-heroic Black Widow.

Her fretful career-driven Jess is the foil for Bell's and McKinnon's hijinks.

But there is little that's shocking or surprising. This is despite McKinnon making out with the corpse on the surf, and predatory middle-aged neighbours Ty Burrell and Demi Moore lurking around for an orgy.

Despite, too, Lucia Aniello of Comedy Central's Broad City directing and co-writing with her partner Paul W Downs, who additionally plays the boring fiancé meanwhile driving through the night, wearing a diaper (don't ask), to find Jess.

Aniello had celebrated sisterhood on the numerous series episodes she produced cum directed. Jess' central bond with her friends never convinces as the one-note characters squabble and then together confront the sudden arrival of violent bad guys in a movie that ends in tears and hugs, just like any standard chick flick, after all.

Rating: C