Spectacularly Unfunny

Rating: 2/10 (23 June 2010)

The movie opens with a music video from Russell Brand's rock star character that is laugh out loud funny. Sadly, save one other scene, that is the only time I actually laughed for the entire running time (which felt like three hours.) I snickered a little, I went hmmmm, I smiled a bit but as far as genuine gut-busters there were hardly any. As it wore on I started paying close attention to the audience (and this was 9pm on a Friday night, where many folks on first dates were desperate to latch on to a shared experience like, say, laughing together) and found they were behaving exactly as I. Scattered laughs from different parts of the theater, but no communal hilarity where the whole audience cracks up as one. The Apatow cash cow snuffed it on this one. Clearly the company is more focused on being prolific than funny and it shows. Serious, stay the hell away until you can see it for free somewhere and only then if you've seen every other available comedy known to man. Major disappointment from all concerned, who I've enjoyed immensely in the past but not at all this time around.