I was thinking about “The Other Guys” before I read the details, and I think it is one of the funniest movies to come down the pike in a long time. What makes it work for me is that hardly any or perhaps none of the jokes are cliché, and the elements of improv are fairly seamless compared to say “Talladega Nights,” which I thought was a total dog. It seems a trend to give improv treatment to scenes before rolling the cameras now, so that there’s still a tightness to whatever one migh call a script these days.
There was a great article in “Wired” about quantifying humor, and the subject of the article boiled what is “funny” down to benign violation. Benign action isn’t funny, and violation isn’t funny, but when you combine the two, that’s what makes it funny. That’s the best and most reliable definition I’ve come across.