Knocked Up: 2.5 PB jars
On May 18th, PB&M guest contributor Fluffhead made the following prediction: "Knocked Up will be the best comedy of the summer, and Rogen will be a big reason why." Despite my initial doubts before seeing Knocked Up, I would now go so far as to call this the best movie of the summer so far. It definitely surpassed Judd Apatow's previous offering, The Forty Year-Old Virgin, which had drawn favorable comparisons to beloved gross-out hits like There's Something About Mary, American Pie, and The Wedding Crashers.
Here's my take: Knocked Up has more non-stop laughs than Virgin or Crashers. It is sentimental but not gooey like American Pie. It features talented leads (Rogan, Katerine Heigl) perfectly cast in their respective roles. I'll admit, I wasn't blown away by Rogan's performance in Virgin, but he definitely seemed to step up his game here. (It's hard to tell how much "acting" is required for Rogan to play a lazy schlub, but luckily there are plenty of comedies in need of this character-type.)
My criticisms of the movie: It's a bit on the long side, but probably only by 10-15 minutes. There's a slight lull around the time that Seth Rogan's character gets in trouble for not reading the baby books, yet it's nowhere near as bad as the huge dead spot in the last third of Wedding Crashers. Oh yeah, and then there's three (count 'em, THREE) unneccessary shots of a baby's head crowning.
Otherwise, Knocked Up is a must-see for anyone who may have passed over this comedy in favor of flashier summer blockbuster fare. As I've mentioned in the past, I have a "no comedies in the theater" policy which I rarely break. (It's hard for me to justify paying $11 in Manhattan for a movie sans special effects... crowning baby head not withstanding.) However, Knocked Up is so hilarious that you can't afford to wait till it's DVD release.
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So Pete, is there an actual review or just a rating? This reminds me of going to Bertucci's last year and the waiter told us he would like to talk about a few specials they had that night. Instead of actually talking about them, he just told us what they were and that they were both tasty, "This new scrimp scampi pasta, that is tasty, and also the muchroom chicken ravioli, that is nice also". He left and I though, are you going to talk about them, or was that it?
I would've given KNOCKED UP more than 2.5 jars (or bottles of beer in my case), so can you enlighten us with an actual review?
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