I thought Judd Apatow's "The 40 Year Old Virgin" was overpraised, but nothing could have prepared me for the over-the-top reaction to his latest epic (130 minutes! Why, oh, why?!) "Knocked Up". I've read critics calling it "an instant classic" and some praising Apatow for capturing the "way we live now". That would be the case if I didn't think real life was 10 or 20 times funnier than anything in "Knocked Up". Put simply, this movie stinks, glowing critical reception notwithstanding.
And that's a shame, because I liked "Virgin" (My biggest complaint is that it went on too long, a similar problem with "Knocked Up".) and I adored NBC's short-lived series "Freaks and Geeks", which Apatow exec-produced. Maybe I've lost my sense of humor, but I just didn't find "Knocked Up" very funny. Sure I laughed a few times, but most of the time I sat there in silence waiting for it to make me laugh. And I wasn't the only one in the theater.
The film stars Seth Rogen as Ben, a pot-smoking layabout who sole job prospect is scheming with his fellow stoners to create a website that lists movie nude scenes. One night he goes to a club and meets Allison (Katherine Heigl), a pretty TV producer who's just landed an on-air spot on the E! network. The movie sets up their courtship thusly: he makes two jokes to her at the bar (which she sort of laughs at), they start dancing, they get drunk, and suddenly she's inviting him into her bed. I understand that this sort of thing happens quite often in real life, but it's extremely hard to believe here because we know little to nothing about either of these people, least of all what Allison would see in in the scruffy, bear-like Ben, even with beer goggles on.
Anyway, they have sex, and eight weeks later it turns out Allison is pregnant. She decides to have the baby and contacts Ben to see if he'll support her. From here, the movie fills up with all this navel-gazing bullshit about commitment and responsibility, instead of getting onto the business of being funny.
Many of you know my wife Eileen and I are expecting our first child. We walked out of "Knocked Up" amazed at how many opportunities Apatow missed. You could make a screwball comedy just out of the breastfeeding class we attended the other night, yet there's nary a mention of some of the goofier aspects of planning for a baby. It's all a bunch of self-absorbed nonsense.
Then there's Allison's sister and her husband. I didn't give one fat turd about either of these people, or their strident bickering. The only purpose of the husband, as far as I could tell, is so Ben has someone to go to Las Vegas with, do 'shrooms and see Cirque du Soleil. (Seriously, I've seen Mystere. It's very entertaining, but not very funny, either live or in this movie.)
There's more. Reactionary doctors. Feeble attempts at satirizing the TV business. (Ryan Seacrest curses! Hilarious!) Graphic depictions of the birth process. Everything but more laughs and a semblance of reality. One episode of "A Baby's Story" on TLC is funnier than "Knocked Up". And it's an hour and 40 minutes shorter.
4 comments:
Pumpkin????
Ryan Seacrest cursing was hilarious, at least from an Idol fans perspective.
Couldn't agree more. Way too long and unfunny
I completely disagree and loved the movie. I especially laughed out loud at every single non sequitur made at the expense of Seth Rogen's friend with the beard. (Incidentally, don't you think it's strange that no one refers to the main character by the character's name? Everyone calls him "Seth Rogen," as if the actor is indistinguishable from the role. Maybe so!)
Anyway, I agree that the E! scenes with Ryan Seacrest were pretty heavy-handed, but what about Kristen Wiig (from SNL)? She stole every scene she was in.
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