Crude, lewd, who let the kids out?

Rating: 3/10 (20 June 2007)

I give it a 3 instead of a 0 because taken out of context there were some good jokes and signs of intelligence.
Given the hype, I expected to laugh. I laughed like crazy thru Borat, Austin Powers movies, and other genuine comedies, but this movie was way disappointing for the following reasons, in order of importance:
1. Implausible plot hinge -- no way would drop-dead gorgeous and high profile Alison keep the baby given Seth and his ridiculously comical slacker profile. How did this get past everyone involved in the film, from conception (pun intended)onward? Surely this was a nagging concern through script development and through actual filming, and it is essentially a death sentence for this film in terms of longevity in artistic merit (box office I don't care). I basically just watched the film for technical reasons after this fatal mistake. People who live in LA most of all should know that her decision to keep the pregnancy is absurd. It just doesn't make sense. They could have at least made her Mormon or Catholic or whatever, thrown in something that made it "impossible" socially, or morally, to have an abortion, but they went ahead with her just "wanting to keep the baby". What universe are critics living in?
2. Gratuitous profanity. Unfricken believable. Ha ha. Especially where he cusses out the doctor for being at a bar mitzvah in SF when he really should be in LA (where way too many of these films are conveniently made)...and people thought that was funny? And the film-maker having his own 8 year-old-daughter say "Everyone calls you a prick. What's a prick?" I am politically progressive. I also have a 7 year old daughter. I cringed when I saw that, in the context of the whole movie. Does that make me an old fart?
3. Cypher / cartoonish / cardboard-cutout / stereotypical characters. Nobody is really like those characters that Seth hangs out with (See implausible). Don't get me wrong. A movie can be implausible, in the sense that one suspends belief for some Deus ex machina type of trick (the existence of angels or Santa Claus) -- but the movie must flow off of that plausibly...the trouble with this film, is that there was NO reason that anyone with any intelligence would believe a woman deciding, with pseudo womanly emotions, to keep a baby fathered by this Seth guy. Or that Alison's sister would find Seth "OK". Or a lot of other things.
4. It presents itself as a romantic comedy, but it's really a tween film, appealing to "sophisticated" 12-17 year old boys who legally aren't supposed to be seeing it, because of the R rating. Huh? Am I clueless to the hundreds of thousands of tween-mented grownups in this country?
I live 600 miles north of Los Angeles. Perhaps as a garden variety citizen who loves a good movie but does not "live and breathe" them as apparently quite a few people do, I have failed to appreciate the special quality of this tree; but I would say no, that those who think this is a good movie are failing to see the health of the forest. They're so focused on the "laughs" for laughs sake, or the comic timing, or the editing technique, or simply comparing the film to other films, that they forget what movies are supposed to do.
Finally, I really wanted to like the movie, and was looking forward to it, since romantic comedies are so hard to do well. But if this is what critics are hailing, we are in really desperate times in this country.