Due Date passed it's point of freshness

Due Date passed it's point of freshness due in part to me unfairly comparing it to Planes, Trains & Automobiles the quintessential buddy/ disaster film. Robert Downey Jr. as the angry pensive straight man came across as wholly unlikable, not because he was upstaged by Zach Galifianakis' misanthropic retread of his weirdo character from The Hangover movies, but because Downey seemed to have dialed in his haughty-jerk-put-upon everyman. His "I just wanna get home." mantra seemed more boorish than haggard as was in the case of sorrowful Neal Page (Steve Martin) who was foiled at every turn by the brilliant oafishness of Del Griffith (John Candy). The set-up was ridiculous. After crashing into each other at an airport a series of ludicrous events (including using terrorism as a gag--I know groundbreaking) forced Peter the stuck up go-go architect and Ethan the unyielding buffoon to have to share a rental car cross country so that Peter wouldn't miss his first child's birth. What ensued was puerile jokes on masturbation, drinking the ashes of a dead person thinking it was coffee, crossing the border into Mexico while high on medical marijuana, and stale racial jokes about the possible paternity of the arriving baby to be that of Jamie Foxx. Instead of genuine sympathy for Ethan after his father's death our emotions were tweaked by director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) with soft piano music and tight close up of a teary Ethan. Those scenes felt forced and manufactured. The only truly funny moment was when our hapless adventurers stopped off at the Grand Canyon for Ethan to spread his father's ashes to the wind and he said "Dad, it's like you've been a father to me." There were a few funny cameos but Due Date veered too far off the road and totally missed the exit to comedy. Next time I'll take the detour.