2008 / 112 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

I may not love Judd Apatow as much as a lot of people but I’ve got to admire his pretty much single-handed revitalization of the modern comedy. His “40 Year Old Virgin” is an inspired bit of art, a movie with heart and soul that manages to keep its romantic comedy leanings fresh and provocative…and its raunchy moments are truly ingenious. “Knocked Up” mined the same formula and stumbled a bit, though it was overall pretty good (it lacks “40 Year Old”’s replay value, however). Apatow and his collaborators (especially the underrated Jake Kasdan who made one of my favorite films of the 90’s with “The Zero Effect” before taking a completely different career track with “Orange County”) then bounced back with “Walk Hard”, a rather inspired parody of the musical biopic genre (scenes like the destruction of the sink were simply dead-on). I didn’t see “Superbad”, mostly because the teenagers-trying-to-score genre is beyond played out for me, but I hear mostly good things. Aside from “Virgin”, each of these movies arrived in theaters bearing the Apatow seal of approval within just one year. Even with some quibbles about their quality (though none of the ones I have seen are less than three fist efforts) I have to admit this is an extraordinary feat for one group of talented people: Apatow, Seth Rogen, Bill Hader and Jonah Hill.

And now he puts his producer talent behind “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” which is written by and stars another of the Apatow tribe: Jason Segel (chief among Seth Rogen’s stoner buddies in “Knocked Up”). “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” isn’t quite as good as “Virgin”, but it’s at least as good as “Knocked Up” and maybe even a little better. The reason? For one thing, it’s not as mean-spirited, has a goofier premise, and features a puppet rock opera about Dracula (which, by the way, is worth the price of admission all by itself).

Segel stars as a composer who does the musical score for a “C.S.I”-esque crime drama called “Crime Scene”. He also dates one of the stars of “Crime Scene”: Sarah Marshall (played by Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell). When Sarah Marshall breaks up with him, Segel is understandably distraught. Initially, he tries to forget his ex by banging dozens of random women (in a truly hilarious montage). When this tactic fails, he decides to escape from his troubles with a Hawaiian vacation. Unfortunately, he books a room in the same resort as Sarah and her new boyfriend: empty-headed emo rocker Aldous Snow (hilariously played by Russell Brand). Hilarity ensues.

Like all the other films bearing the Apatow brand, this film is strong on character and snappy dialogue and filled to the brim with off-color humor. As in “Knocked Up” some of this scatalogical humor works (a virgin complaining about having to please his wife on their wedding night) and some doesn’t. For example, there is a bit too much penis in the break-up scene…though this scene is still pretty hilarious. Like watching Sideshow Bob get hit in the face with rakes, seeing Segel’s junk goes from funny to overdone to boring to freakin’ hilarious through context and simple repetition. There are plenty of pop culture references in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (another trademark of the Apatow brand) but they are integrated into the whole much better than the “Spider Man 3″ and “Munich” references in “Knocked Up”. The writing is uniformly good, never sacrificing character for a joke. Though some of the film’s circumstances are a tad far-fetched, they do yield a lot of laughs. The borderline implausibility of the situations (Segel and his ex choosing the same resort, the asshole rocker helping a putz with his honeymoon sex life, a desk clerk booking someone into the resort’s most expensive room for free because she feels sorry for him, etc.) is actually part of the film’s woolly charm.

The performances are all quite good, as we’ve all come to expect from the Apatow team. Segel has written himself a showcase role as the sad sack at the heart of the film, and he goes the distance with it. And though she initially comes off as a heartless, one-note bitch, the effervescent Kristen Bell eventually gets to inject some unexpected dimensions into her television harpy character. By the end she actually feels human, and one can see where her character was coming from in dumping Segel’s lazy ass at the beginning. Mila Kunis’s role in the film is a lot like Natalie Portman’s role in “Garden State”: she’s the free-spirited pixie who teaches the main character how to live again. But Kunis does quite well with the character. Again, by the end, the writing combined with her performance have given the character a life beyond the borders of the screen.

The supporting players are a rather mixed bag, however. Paul Rudd is generally hilarious but here he isn’t given a lot to work with. I’ve never really cared for Jonah Hill and he’s not changing my mind here. Russell Brand on the other hand, who I’ve never seen in anything else, steals almost every scene he’s in and I liked Bill Hader’s limited onscreen contributions.

In short, I don’t have much to say against this movie. It’s an inspired, hilarious, raunchy, great comedy that happens to wander into romantic comedy territory. The Hawaiian locales are gorgeous, the acting is uniformly great, the writing is mostly marvelous, the babes are hot, and the scene where one couple tries to out-orgasm another is ingenious. I could grumpily complain that it doesn’t really do anything that Apatow and company’s other films haven’t done, but what would be the point of that? It’s sometimes sweet, wickedly funny, and well rounded. If only more comedies were as good as this one.

Then again, since Judd Apatow seems to be behind about eighty-five percent of the comedies made nowadays in one way or another, it seems that most of them are.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.