The brothers try to float on used jokes in "The Heartbreak Kid"

I was driving home from work when I looked to my right and saw an airplane with what looked like smoke coming out the end. It seemed to be slowly getting closer to the ground, as if the plane — old, tired, and trying not to crash — was floating on air while slowly plummeting.

Then I thought of the new Farrelly brothers' movie, The Heartbreak Kid. It occurred to me that reentry into R-rated shock comedy was the Peter and Bobby Farrelly way of not crashing, of trying to stay afloat on jokes they knew had worked before.

Their previous movie, Fever Pitch (2005), grossed only $42 million. That's a far cry from the huge success of There's Something About Mary (1998), which grossed $176 million.

Heartbreak Kid is loosely based on the 1972 movie of the same title starring Charles Grodin and Cybil Shepherd. Ben Stiller takes the lead as the unlucky-in-love Eddie Cantrow, who hastily marries Lily (Malin Akerman) only to find out on their honeymoon that she is unstable and carries enough emotional baggage to please Jude Law on a transatlantic flight. At their Mexican honeymoon resort, Eddie meets the girl of his dreams, Miranda, played by Michelle Monaghan.

The movie also stars Carlos Mencia, known for his envelope-pushing comedic routines that exaggerate racial stereotypes. In this movie, he plays up the social clichés as Uncle Tito, a Mexican concierge. At a recent press junket in Miami, Mencia joked, "If I can't play this role, then I need to start looking for a new job." Indeed. He also divulged that he stole the accent he used in the movie from his Uncle José.

And if you are wondering about the recent controversy surrounding Mencia's authorship of his material, the comedian chalked it up to the "piñata syndrome": When you make it to the top, people are always trying to knock you down, he said.

Heartbreak Kid begins fairly benignly, with Ben Stiller's usual dry brand of humor. Then in steps Akerman, looking amazingly like Cameron Diaz. Turns out she acts like her too, when Diaz played the leading role in Mary.

As I followed along on the Farrelly romp, I began to notice even more similarities between the two comedies. For instance: Odd family members are an integral part of both films. Remember Mary's slow brother Warren? Well, in Heartbreak Kid, replace him with a whole slow Southern family. Ben Stiller gets raided by the cops in both films. Another scene, where Eddie begins to fall in love with the "other woman" Miranda, could be a mirror image of a scene in Mary.

Think of it as a Mad Lib:

Ben Stiller sits on the ground with _____________. They are bantering, getting to know one another while gazing at the water in ________________, and smoking a joint.

Sexual innuendos also make a comeback: However, in Kid sexual positions (pile driver, jack hammer) are the topic of choice, as opposed to masturbation (choking the chicken, flogging the dolphin) in Mary.

Even shockingly grotesque body parts are showcased in both films. However, instead of a woman's wrinkled fun bags in Mary, it's an exaggeratedly hairy woman's love nest. Ha, ha.

My advice is walk, don't run, to see this film. In fact, if you own There's Something About Mary, just watch it again; the jokes are cleverer, the plot more fleshed out. On the other hand, Ben Stiller does get peed on, and that may just be worth a couple of bucks to you.