'The Switch': should have been funnier

“The Switch”

One and a half stars

By Thomas Tracy

Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman become the proud parents of a bouncing baby dud of a movie in “The Switch,” which proves, rather haphazardly, that sperm donors need love too.

While the two rom-com mainstays can probably punch out an unrequited love story in their sleep, they seem to be straining to get laughs in what should have been laugh fest — for God sakes, a turkey baster is involved!

Seeing no prospective mates in her near future, Aniston’s Kassie Larson decides to impregnate herself with a donor’s sperm. But her plan doesn’t sit well with Bateman’s Wally Mars, a BFF who’s always wanted to take his relationship with Kassie to the next level, but never had the gonads to make the attempt.

That changes at Kassie’s impregnation party, when he switches the donor sperm with his own fleet of fellas, thanks to a little help from Diane Sawyer (don’t ask, the joke wasn’t that funny anyway).

Fast forward a few years and Kassie’s back in New York with her son Sebastian, who, surprisingly, has a lot of uncanny connections to Wally.

What should happen next should be filled with hilarity and some sparks between Aniston (“The Bounty Hunter”) and Bateman (“Up In The Air”), but there aren’t any.

Mind you, the two actually do look cute together, especially with the kid (the dimple-cheeked newcomer Thomas Robinson) by their side, but their romance is like a virgin daiquiri — sweet and colorful, but no buzz.

The more of the movie you see, the more you learn why Kassie and Wally never hooked up in the first place. He’s constantly annoying with his paranoid quirks, while she’s about as uninteresting as can be.

Whatever glint of a romantic spark this movie started with dies quickly, leaving the heavy lifting to Jeff Goldblum (“Law & Order Criminal Intent”) and Juliette Lewis (“Whip It”), who mange to draw the most laughs as these two best friends’ other best friends.

“The Switch.” Starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexual material including dialogue, some nudity, drug use and language. Playing in Brooklyn at Access Digital Theatres - Pavilion Cinema in Park Slope and UA Sheepshead Bay 14.