Knocked Up Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)June 1st, 2007
KNOCKED UP
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Funny? Sometimes. Hilarious? Not so much. KNOCKED UP, written and directed by Judd Apatow, is a druggie comedy that plays like the bloated brother of the crisper and cuter THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, Apatow's last picture. Running a butt-numbing two hours and ten minutes, KNOCKED UP features the gorgeous Katherine Heigl (Izzie on "Grey's Anatomy") in a fish-out-of-water story.
Alison Scott (Heigl) lives in the world of beautiful celebrities as the latest on-air personality for the E entertainment channel. Her producers want her to lose 20 pounds off of her already slender body and want her to tighten her buttocks. This proves increasingly difficult after Alison finds herself knocked up by Ben Stone (Seth Rogen, Cal in THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN), a crude geek who runs an even cruder website.
With four of his buddies who refuse to grow up, Ben works on designing an unlaunched website that reveals exactly when starlets show their boobs in movies. This proves weirdly ironic, since this raunchy R-rated comedy seems embarrassed by the human body. Alison manages to get pregnant with her underwear on, hence Heigl in this film would not have an entry in Ben's fictional website.
A chubby guy with curly hair, a scruffy beard, and "man boobs," Ben is the last person a woman like the stunning Alison would sleep with, but the movie wants us to believe not only that but also to believe that the two of them would fall naturally for each other later. Sure they have their spats, but the movie wants us to believe that they always really care for each other. Heigl and Rogen have little genuine chemistry together, but at least they have some. The same can't be said for the many relationships in this overstuffed film.
Alison lives with her step-sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Debbie's husband Pete (Paul Rudd). Among these four people, the script explores all sorts of relationships, especially that between Ben and Pete, who become best buds. I never bought any of it, although some of it was funny.
The cynical Pete keeps offering Ben advice, such as, "Marriage is like an unfunny, tense version of 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' but it doesn't last twenty-two minutes. It goes on forever."
Ben's doofus buddies, who spend their entire lives stoned out of their minds, like to offer ridiculous thoughts on life. Jason (Jason Segel), for example, can't understand why Ben got Alison pregnant. After all, Jason reasons, all you need to do is use the woman on top position since everyone knows that gravity prevents impregnation.
Ninety minutes hanging out with this crowd might have been fun, but after one hundred and thirty minutes, they had long since overstayed their welcome. KNOCKED UP is a needlessly disappointing second film from Apatow, even if it does provide some laughs along the way.
KNOCKED UP runs way too long at 2:10. It is rated R for "sexual content, drug use and language" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, June 1, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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