Steve Martin works overtime at being likable in this Carl Reiner-directed comedy about the world's greatest brain surgeon who falls in love with a (talking) brain in a jar. Kathleen Turner is his sexy, shrewish wife; David Warner is a mad scientist whose laboratory is in a hotel (!). Shoddy-looking slapstick with much of its emphasis on smutty gags. Reiner and Martin most likely believed this comic material was cutting-edge...so how does that explain the soggy sentimentality in the film's second-half? The dirty jokes are torpedoed and the pace comes to a screeching halt as Martin falls in love, which means less and less of Turner (the picture's one real bright spot). Steve Martin is a very confident and capable screen comedian; he has some funny scenes here, indeed, but in the mid-'80s, pop-crack quickies like "Two Brains" were becoming an albatross around his neck. *1/2 from ****