I sure did laugh, but this spin-off eventually wears a little thin, and sometimes gets kind of disturbing

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2011)

The now very famous but widely despised Russell Brand made his breakthrough in 2008's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", in which he played Aldous Snow, the lead singer of the fictional rock band, Infant Sorrow. In this 2010 spin-off sequel, the comedian got to reprise his role from the previous film, but this time, it was one of the two lead roles. As frightening as this may sound to a lot of people, I do think Brand is a funny comedian, and I found the 2008 Apatow Productions film he appeared in to be an overall funny and satisfying farce, so I was obviously interested in seeing this follow-up. I wasn't expecting "Get Him to the Greek" to be as good, and had noticed a lot of criticism of it, making my expectations a little lower. It turned out that I found it a LOT funnier than many others have, but it certainly doesn't stay as consistent as it could.
Infant Sorrow frontman Aldous Snow, whose current girlfriend is pop star Jackie Q, makes an album with his band called "African Child", with the title track as a single, but this turns out to be a critical and commercial disaster! The singer has now been sober for seven years, but his relationship with Jackie fails, and he relapses, abusing alcohol and illegal drugs again after all these years! This makes him spiral out of control and ruin his career! Meanwhile, Aaron Green is a lowly Los Angeles talent scout who works for Pinnacle Records, a company which is currently in a financial rut. He is also a hardcore Infant Sorrow fan, so he suggests to Pinnacle Records head Sergio Roma, who is looking for ideas to save the company, that they have Aldous perform at the Greek Theatre on the tenth anniversary of his big show at that venue. Sergio sends Aaron on a flight to London to escort the washed-up rock star to Los Angeles, and tells him he has 72 hours to get the man to the Greek Theatre. Unfortunately, several complications will make it difficult for Aaron and Aldous to make it to this major gig on time!
Aware of the criticism by the time I watched this, I thought maybe it really would turn out to be lame, and a major disappointment after "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", but that wasn't the case for me. I soon found myself laughing (sometimes lightly) as the film shows Aldous and his girlfriend and what goes wrong. More funny parts follow as we are introduced to Aaron Green and his life in L.A., and at this point, it helps that Sean "P. Diddy" Combs is funny as the short-tempered Sergio Roma. There are times when the film lags around this point, but not usually. I think it gets funnier when Aaron meets Aldous in London, and we hear what Aldous' mother thinks of his father. On the flight back to the United States, the conversation between Aaron and Aldous is another comic highlight, with Aaron admitting what he really thinks of "African Child" and the Infant Sorrow frontman's reaction to this. The big laughs continue with all the problems these two characters face as the talent scout tries to get the singer to their destination before the time is up. Sure, there are some pretty lame gags, but these are fairly rare. However, after a while, it wears a bit thin, and it sometimes gets kind of disturbing with Aldous' drug problems and what happens when he gets Aaron to smoke some of these drugs without the talent scout knowing, though I'm certainly not saying that it's all straight-faced from this point on.
Other viewers can hate this movie and look down on anyone who likes it all they want, but after watching such lousy attempts at comedy as "Ed", "My Boss's Daughter", and "The Master of Disguise" recently, I have to say that this one is a LOT funnier than those! "Get Him to the Greek" is the first comedy I've seen in a few weeks that has actually made me laugh a lot, so I have to give it credit for that! Still, even all those bad comedies didn't make this one look like a work of genius to me, as I could still see the flaws in it, which eventually get more significant as the movie progresses. Since this is another effort from Apatow Productions, you can obviously expect it to be very raunchy, and some scenes could gross you out, but even if you can take this and are prepared for it, and even if you like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", you could find "Get Him to the Greek" disappointing. Still, while many would disagree, I certainly think it could have been MUCH worse, and it can obviously please certain audiences.