Knocked Up (B+ or 3/4 stars)
Katherine Heigl gets 'Knocked Up' in a comedy written & directed by Judd Apatow. Allison Scott (Heigl) has just received a promotion as an on-camera interviewer on the E! channel. To celebrate, she & her 30-something sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann) go to a club. There, Allison hooks up with a slobby Ben Stone (Seth Rogen). Casual conversation leads to nervousness, nervousness leads to alcohol, then more alcohol, & they wind-up back at her pad for a one-night stand. 8 weeks later, Ben is flabbergasted when Allison meets him for dinner to reveal the inopportune news that she is pregnant. This lengthy film plays as 1/2 side-splitting comedy, 1/2 romance, & the combination works well. To follow up 40 Yr. Old Virgin, Apatow has created another solid summer movie this time around.
Allison is a statuesque, upper middle-class beauty with a brain to back up her goals in life. Ben is a chubby, fun-loving stoner who is in America illegally and refuses to work until the hundred dollars in his bank account runs dry. And although they all have good hearts, Ben lives with a group of lowlifes whose intelligentsia is on par with the dodo bird. He hangs out and works with his buddies on their website (which specifies the moments in movies when women are naked).
How could these polar opposites hook-up at a club in the first place? Are they at all right for each other? Will Allison go this alone? Does Ben have the means and maturity to stick around and help Allison through this? Could a relationship work if formed for the baby's sake? This movie does a fantastic job at showing us how everything can fall into (and easily out of) place and if it could ultimately work for them. We all find out together after 9 roller coaster months.
OK, I have not laughed so hard at a movie in quite a long time. It's one of those films where you're throat is throbbing from laughter & you're feeding off of the roars in the theater so much that you miss the next 3 or 4 lines of dialogue (probably missing some more opportunities for laughs). However, much like 40 Yr. Old Virgin, the movie goes on a little too long and the lengthy middle act falls flat a bit (before amping up the fun again in the 3rd Act). There's a Las Vegas scene that could have been trimmed including Ben and Debbie's husband (a great Paul Rudd). Bottom line ... the 'romance' part of this film is ESSENTIAL to the plot, and it's handled quite well. It just means there's an inevitable let-down when you've been punch-drunk on laughter for nearly an hour.
The best aspect of this movie is that its' characters are extremely relatable. This film has some lame-brain jokes & gags. But they're timed well, and rooted in such insightful dialogue and circumstance that you could 'completely' see yourself as any of these characters in their sticky situation. Apatow captures everyday musings of human nature so well; THAT'S what makes it all so funny, honest, & seemingly unrehearsed. Leslie Mann is hysterical as Allison's sister. Heigl has some acute comedic timing. Ben's pals almost made me pee in my pants. And Seth Rogen is charmingly hilarious. 'Knocked Up' is a bit long, it has some rough spots, but the extremely raunchy visual & verbal comedy mixed with an oddly sweet, relaxed plotline makes this a good time to be had at the movies.
Allison is a statuesque, upper middle-class beauty with a brain to back up her goals in life. Ben is a chubby, fun-loving stoner who is in America illegally and refuses to work until the hundred dollars in his bank account runs dry. And although they all have good hearts, Ben lives with a group of lowlifes whose intelligentsia is on par with the dodo bird. He hangs out and works with his buddies on their website (which specifies the moments in movies when women are naked).
How could these polar opposites hook-up at a club in the first place? Are they at all right for each other? Will Allison go this alone? Does Ben have the means and maturity to stick around and help Allison through this? Could a relationship work if formed for the baby's sake? This movie does a fantastic job at showing us how everything can fall into (and easily out of) place and if it could ultimately work for them. We all find out together after 9 roller coaster months.
OK, I have not laughed so hard at a movie in quite a long time. It's one of those films where you're throat is throbbing from laughter & you're feeding off of the roars in the theater so much that you miss the next 3 or 4 lines of dialogue (probably missing some more opportunities for laughs). However, much like 40 Yr. Old Virgin, the movie goes on a little too long and the lengthy middle act falls flat a bit (before amping up the fun again in the 3rd Act). There's a Las Vegas scene that could have been trimmed including Ben and Debbie's husband (a great Paul Rudd). Bottom line ... the 'romance' part of this film is ESSENTIAL to the plot, and it's handled quite well. It just means there's an inevitable let-down when you've been punch-drunk on laughter for nearly an hour.
The best aspect of this movie is that its' characters are extremely relatable. This film has some lame-brain jokes & gags. But they're timed well, and rooted in such insightful dialogue and circumstance that you could 'completely' see yourself as any of these characters in their sticky situation. Apatow captures everyday musings of human nature so well; THAT'S what makes it all so funny, honest, & seemingly unrehearsed. Leslie Mann is hysterical as Allison's sister. Heigl has some acute comedic timing. Ben's pals almost made me pee in my pants. And Seth Rogen is charmingly hilarious. 'Knocked Up' is a bit long, it has some rough spots, but the extremely raunchy visual & verbal comedy mixed with an oddly sweet, relaxed plotline makes this a good time to be had at the movies.