What is it with movies about pregnancy lately? My wife is also pregnant--just in case you didn't read the last review on this subject--The kid hasn't even come out yet and I'm starting to look at everything in a different way, it's a little crazy. Anyway I thought this film was hilarious in fact it was so damn funny I missed a large portion of it because the theatre was erupting with laughter every five minutes or so. This is Judd Apatow's second film and he just gets better and better. The 40 Year Old Virgin with Steve Carell was funny sure, but it doesn't blend the poignant/real life scenes with humor half as well as Knocked Up. Honestly the true brilliance behind the film is pairing up polar opposites Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl. I mean Heigl is drop dead gorgeous, and Rogan-well he's pretty hairy--like Robin Williams hairy. You would think after stupid sitcoms like the King of Queens, Still Standing or the really ignorant According to Jim that it's pretty inconceivable for the, albeit, loveable fat slob to get a banging hot model wife. The same is true about Knocked Up except that Rogan and Heigl do have really great chemistry and they allow that to build in a very realistic way throughout the film. For a comedy it's pretty long about 2 hours and 25 minutes. My wife keeps telling me that she's getting frustrated with the biblical lengths of the summer films this year. I heard it with Spidey, a little bit more for Pirates and of course once we saw this film she got all hot and bothered by the running time. She's cranky--she's hormonal--she's also six months pregnant.
Ben (Seth Rogan) is a twenty-something slacker with little to no direction. Alison (Katherine Heigl) is a twenty-something career girl working her way up the ladder at E entertainment. Ben and his buddies Jay, Jason, Jonah and Martin are trying to start up an web site that tracks Famous female stars that have nude scenes, usually of course early in their careers. The funniest stuff in the film is with the slacker friends especially Jonah Hill who almost steals the show with his random quips. Alison lives with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband Pete (Paul Rudd) and their two kids. So Alison gets some big promotion so to celebrate she takes her sister clubbing, they get drunk and end up meeting Ben. Everything falls into place as you would expect, Alison and Ben have the nookie and she tries to get rid of him in the morning. Eight weeks later--as the title suggests, she discovers her castle has been invaded.
One of the great attributes of this film is the un-scripted feel of the dialogue. Nothing sounds forced or trite--funny as hell yes, but they don't bog it down with silly monologues about doing the right thing. It just felt very real and yes there is a lot of language especially from the very mousy Debbie. This chick could hang with George Carlin in the potty mouth department. I mean she could probably give him a run for his money. Katherine Heigl is actually funny, as I said before she is stunningly hot, but she can act too, which is rare for someone so damn beautiful. Seth Rogan has really come into his own after Freaks and Geeks and 40 Year Old Virgin, so what if he looks like the man-child of Art Garfunkel and Albert Brooks, he did a great job as leading man, maybe as a follow up he should make Defending your Life part 2! It takes a little while but Paul Rudd is great in this too, especially when they go to Vegas to see Cirque de Solis while tripping on Schrooms. If you are a fan of 40 Year Old Virgin, Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared then you will love this film as much or more than I.
NOTE: By the way Harold Ramis appears in this film--he used to be the skinny guy--He was Egon for Christ sake. I mean he's not Harry Knowles large but--he's certainly husky. But at least he's still funny--in fact his character could have been the older version of his Russell Ziskey character from Stripes in '81.
Grade: 4 Buckets
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