I Can Forget Soon Enough

Rating: 1/10 (19 August 2008)

By Bryce VanKooten
The night was quiet, the bold spring sunset had faded from existence and most of us (the chosen few) were freshly done with our final papers, save one man. In that fanciful moment of slow and steady disregard for anything related to planning, an infamous quote was born. While contemplating whether or not to end his spree of embraced laziness that had plagued his journey thus far, one of my college dorm-mate eloquently revealed, "The key to writing a great paper is hiding poor ideas behind great structure." It was not until today that I fully realized the truth of those his words. Today I find myself intrigued at that statement and amazed that others, even a team of professionals, have yet to figure it out.
Last night I lost just under two hours of my life. Not to sleep (which I would have traded ten times over), but to a movie entitled, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. As I entered the theater, I was convinced that sitting in the front row would not ruin my experience, that despite my carnal intuition, this movie could not have more needless sex than Jud Apatow's previous films (40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, etc). I had been invited for free, how super-bad could it get? Regrettably, only worse from there.
For my sanity (I couldn't be more serious), I'm going to skip over the first half. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because after the remainder, I wanted to donkey punch the crew. There are not words to express the angst and pain i felt for the final 4,500 minutes of this nightmare, although 'angst' and 'pain' seem to work nicely, for now.
For pity's sake, I'll give you the high points...
Okay, that's about it. Now for the the low points.
Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is busted up pretty bad after his girlfriend and budding TV star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) breaks up with him (he's naked and I can't emphasize enough how not funny this is every time). To reboot, he takes a trip to Hawaii where he meets a fresh-and-fun-brunette-hotel-clerk Rachael (Mila Kunis aka; Family Guy's Meg Griffith), but turns around only moments later to see his newly departed girlfriend has arrived with her new 60's-inspired, rock-star boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russel Brand). Got it? Shenanigans ensue and much 'awkwerdity' is had, all thanks to the seemingly fail-safe-for-a-laugh waiter/hotel helper/Aldous stalker, played by Jonah Hill. The movie consists of jealousy, seduction and a little surfing with the help of a familiar-faced, completely strung out surf instructor, Paul Rudd. After Peter becomes jealous of Sarah and Sarah turning out to be jealous of Peter (what a twist!), the movie ventures into the unknown, never again to let you see the light of day, unless its inside their underwear. Yada, yada, yada, Aldous Snow is funny and the movie continues on -- terrible script in hand, an even worse storyline and (quite literally) one of the most distasteful and incredibly unfunny movies I've seen in the past decade.
I'm guessing, by the end of the film, we're supposed to like Peter Bretter (or at least feel sorry for himwhich we didn't), but in a comedic sense, how can you like, or give any emotion to someone that doesn't entertain you? I suppose he entertained me when he took the lengthy banana out of his Margarita Smoothie and muttered, "Whoa, look at this guy" -- that was funny. But outside of the few moments when he was perfectly drunk, it was plain torturous.
It's a pretty simple fact: this movie is tragically made. To call this movie 'amusing' or 'entertaining' without qualification would be like calling an STD necessary. This movie was a complete waste of time and an utter disaster for everyone involved, especially the writer. The movie went nowhere, showed we the viewer nothing and left me saying, 'I fully realize that I have to take a shower when I get home, but I don't even want to look in the mirror'. I'm sorry if you've seen this movie already. I'm not sorry that you now understand what I'm trying to say, but I do apologize that I couldn't have stopped you sooner. My apologies for not being able to grab Andy three years ago, given him a Flux Capacitor and a megaphone and told him to scream his line at the top of his lungs all the way to 2008. All horribly raunchy, 40 Year-Old Virgin had a story, Anchorman remains a recent classic and Superbad was, wellfunny. Plainly speaking, I hope Forgetting Sarah Marshall will be soon forgotten (oh, that was too easy). And judging by the way The Forbidden Kingdom preformed this weekend, Forgetting Sarah Marshall may not be all it was knocked up to be.