| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Joe Blevins |
Posted - 06/02/2007 : 06:13:31
I just got back from seeing Judd Apatow's new comedy Knocked Up. A very funny film, though saying the title out loud was kind of embarrassing. The movie is very much in the tradition of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, so if you liked that movie's combination of raunch and sentiment, you're bound to like this one, too. The cast of this movie is uniformly good, not only the leads (including Apatow regulars Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd), but the amazing supporting cast (Rogen's stoner buddies), and a slew of familiar faces in cameo parts (special kudos to Kristen Wiig, who does her patented passive-aggressive bit here). This is a movie where even a Ryan Seacrest cameo winds up being funny. Beloved TV mom Joanna Kerns also appears, and there were audible gasps from the audience during her scene because of who she is and what she says. If tonight's audience is any indication, this movie will be a hit with a nice long life on DVD and cable. (Though when I saw Grindhouse at this very same theater, it got a great reaction... and bombed anyway.)
Before the movie, there were trailers for about 4 or 5 upcoming comedies, most of which looked just awful. (Superbad might end up being funny. We'll see.) But I want to point out the prominent use of big red letters against a white background in the trailers for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and License to Wed. Those movies have all the requirements of being red-letter movies, including gimmicky premises, slapstick, and TV funnymen in the leading roles. The Rock's new movie, The Game Plan, is an honorary red-letter movie, even though its trailer features big red and BLUE letters, and The Rock started as a TV wrestler instead of on a sitcom or Saturday Night Live. Other than that, it's a red-letter movie all the way. |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 06:10:56
Actually, I did't think that Knocked Up was all that funny, but it was sweet. The script wasn't bad and most of the silly parts weren't terribly stupid. I'd call it "cute", and while there are some pretty dumb bits, it wasn't a bad movie. The saving grace was Heigle and her natural acting talent, which made the audience believe that someone who looks like her could actually behave like that with someone who looks like Seth Rogan. A lesser actress would have made this film a total flop.
However, I found 40 Year Old Virgin to be a very painful watching experience indeed. It was just... sad... pitifully sad. I'm sorry, but that type of sad just isn't funny to me. The best part was Catherine Keener and even then, only some the scenes with her were good. For the most part, I sat there with a grimace of discomfort on my face. Carrell just doesn't really make you feel anything for his character until he starts to admit to himself that he really isn't ready for sex until he's married, and then over 3/4 of the movie has gone by. Problem is, everything leading up until that is where the jokes are supposed to come from, and these friends of his are even more sad than he is to they'd get so involved in some looser's sex life. Just pathetic!
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| Sean |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 10:31:00
One of those rare instances when the IMDb score lets me down. I gave it 4/10. Three laughs in 130 minutes was nowhere near enough, I was bored out of my skull. I didn't find the characters or plot plausible or funny, although Heigl looked good. 
I'd describe it as a vacuous, generic Hollywood comedy drama that wasn't funny or dramatic.  An early trip to the abortion clinic to terminate both pregnancy and movie would have improved it markedly.  |
| Joe Blevins |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 01:06:37
I doubt if any movie, especially a lightweight comedy, could live up to the hype Knocked Up has received. It's a predictable pattern that happens to a half-dozen movies each year: critics find a nice little movie, go a little overboard praising it, and that leads to a wave of skepticism and backlash. The avalanche of hype is both good and bad: good in that it generates ticket sales, bad in that it sets up possibly unrealistic expectations in the minds of moviegoers. Knocked Up is a lark, a fun and funny little movie and nothing else. If you strip away all the marginal stuff (I liked the Rogen/Rudd stuff, BTW), you still have some of the basic elements of a Hollywood formula comedy. I see what you mean about having to serve too many masters, but let's face it, that's the reality of the marketplace. I was relieved that Knocked Up soft-peddled the formulaic stuff and the sappy stuff and allowed plenty of screen time for goofy stuff that didn't advance the plot and was just in the movie for the sole purpose of being funny.
It's too bad that critics feel in order to "sell" a movie like this to the public, they have to praise it to the skies. I think people will enjoy Knocked Up more if they go in not expecting anything more than some laughs and a group of characters who seem like they'd be cool to hang out with for a while. I think it's worth pointing out that an actual funny Hollywood comedy is one of the rarest of the rare, so I'm all the more willing to grade Knocked Up on a curve. It's amazing the extent to which this movie has been dissected and debated online, in newspaper columns, on the radio, etc. It kind of drains the fun out of it. Oh, well.
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| randall |
Posted - 06/19/2007 : 23:17:55
We saw it this past Sunday and were hype victims. [We usually wait a couple of weeks to avoid the crowds if we really want to see a flick in the theater. Hype tells us to see it NOW, and not to wait for the DVD.]
Because it just wasn't as good as the hype.
It's great: a gross-out and chick flick all in one. Dates all around! But the story s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s, the Rudd/Rogen friendship is the worst offender, yet there are crumbs for everyone. I do NOT disbelieve a goddess gradually falling in love with a less-attractive but still good and genuine man, and the upcoming baby makes this elongated scrutiny occur plausibly.
But it was too long, too sappy in trying to serve too many masters. The most enjoyable parts were found around the edges: Kristen Wiig, the stoners, etc.
It's not bad. It's just not the triumph I was expecting. |
| silly |
Posted - 06/08/2007 : 23:54:00
I saw Knocked Up with my wife the other night, and thought it dayum funny.
A little odd for me - I'm infertile, therefore unable to conceive even in the wild circumstances of the movie - but that didn't take away from the funny. There are some deleted scenes floating around on Youtube that I wish had stayed in the movie, but it was pushing it length-wise as it was.
The 'combination of humor and sentiment' was very well done, I thought, such as the conversation between the men in Vegas, which was incredibly deep but made very light due to the circumstances, etc.
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| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 16:56:16
Knocked Up is by far a movie that I'm very glad I'm saw alone, because honesty, it's kind of depressing. Reminds me of when me and my then-girlfriend went to see "Closer." *shudder* |
| Joe Blevins |
Posted - 06/04/2007 : 16:50:39
SIDE NOTE: I generally go to movies alone, and this was one of the *rare* times when I felt awkward in the theater because of that. The audience for Knocked Up was almost exclusively couples, and I'm pretty sure I was the only guy sitting alone in the theater. I'm not usually self-conscious about that kind of thing, but when the end credits started I all but bolted for the exit -- which is something I don't normally do.
(On the other hand, when I saw a matinee of Triplets of Belleville at this same theater, the audience was almost exclusively guys sitting alone. That's my kind of audience: nice and quiet, everyone paying attention to what's happening onscreen.) |
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