Knocked Up - When the ultimate male fantasy gets real
Written: Jul 04 '07
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Good cast, lots of funny stuff
Cons: Crude
The Bottom Line: It's crude, sweet, and funny - all at the same time.
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| phungus's Full Review: Knocked Up |
Knocked Up is an adult comedy about a beautiful young professional woman who finds herself pregnant with a rather undesirable guy. It stars Katherine Heigl of Gray’s Anatomy and is from the same people who made The 40 Year-Old Virgin.
Katherine Heigl plays a woman who works in television and lives with her married sister and two kids. In a way, she needs to grow up a little bit. If anyone needed to grow up, it was Ben (played by Seth Rogen), who is unemployed and spends his time cataloguing nude scenes from movies so he and his stoner friends can launch a website called Fleshofthestars.com. The two meet one night at a bar, and after quite a few drinks they end up in bed together. They don’t see or hear from each other for another 8 weeks, and that is when Heigl’s character informs Ben that she is pregnant.
After some arguing and disbelief, Rogen’s character decides to accept the responsibility of being a father and does what he can to help Heigl. It doesn’t help much that he’s a big time pothead and has no job, so he’s not exactly a strong father figure. With all of this going on, he and Heigl spend a lot of time with her sister and husband, played by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. Rogen and Rudd, who were hilarious together in The 40 Year-Old Virgin, share some good scenes about fatherhood and marriage, from one guy about to step into the ring to another who has been there for several years.
On one hand, this is like the ultimate male fantasy about a grubby, unemployed pot smoker who lands not just a one night stand, but a relationship with a gorgeous blonde. That fantasy then comes to a screeching halt when the pregnancy occurs. From there, this becomes a movie about growing up and accepting responsibility not only for your actions, but for being an adult. Despite all the very crude humor and numerous drug references, there is a general sweetness to this movie.
Writer/director Judd Apatow has made yet another chick flick for guys. By mixing real-life relationship issues with over-the-top humor and really funny dialogue, he’s made a movie that appeals to both men and women. It’s no surprise that this movie, as well The 40 Year-Old Virgin, were both huge box office successes.
I find it encouraging that movies like this still make money these days, especially during a summer filled with really dumb big-budget special effects extravaganzas. This movie was made with a very modest $30 million budget, and it has so far made over $120 at the U.S. box office alone. Compare that to Evan Almighty, which managed to make over $30 million in its opening weekend, but is still going to be a bomb because it cost $200 million to make. This movie is doing well because it features good writing and real comedy that doesn’t rely on gimmicks or computer graphics. Sooner or later, Hollywood is going to learn from little movies like this and quit wasting so much money on action movie cartoons.
The bottom line here is that if you liked the type of humor and adult situations from movies like The 40 Year-Old Virgin, then you will like Knocked Up. If you prefer your comedies to be of the family-oriented, PG or PG-13 rated variety, then you definitely want to avoid this one.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Funny Movie
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