Knocked Me Over With Laughter!

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2007)

I believed that Hot Fuzz could not be topped this year, how completely wrong I turned out to be. Now my views on seeing Knocked Up were very mixed at times, despite the brilliant trailer and the great premise one thing still haunted me, and that thing is The 40 Year Old Virgin. Now for saying this I realise I am going to get quite a few peoples backs up, and I admit I am in the very small minority here, but the truth is that I didn't find 40 Year Old Virgin that great. I know shock horror! It was funny, I will give it that, and it helped launch Steve Carrel's career, a fact I am very grateful for, well until I saw Evan Almighty. But I just didn't find it as funny as I hoped and I found it very overrated by a lot of people. As a result of this I was praying that Knocked Up would be a bit different from 40 Year Old Virgin, or at least that I'd find it as good as the critics had made it out to be. Thankfully I did! I spent two hours last night in absolute hysterics because of how funny this movie turned out to be, and it was so funny that I am seeing it yet again tonight! The movie is funny and sweet blended together perfectly, the sentimentality factor does kick in eventually, but I didn't have a problem with it because it was executed so well. The cast is pitch perfect and hopefully this will launch Seth Rogen's career as 40 Year Old Virgin did for Steve Carrel.
As I just said the cast of Knocked Up are absolutely perfect. Seth Rogen proves to be a great comedian in this movie and he's actually playing a believable character. Things he does and says are actually very believable, sure he comes across as a bumbling idiot at times, but in truth all he wants is fun out of life. Katherine Heigl does an equally as brilliant job as the lady who is Knocked Up, her character does seem a bit bitchy as the hormones kick in, but it was interesting for me to watch this as I went with another boy and two girls. Us two guys sat there and related completely to Ben, the girls on the other hand seemed to be more on the side of Alison. It was interesting as it obviously worked just as well for them as it did for us. The performances just seem very honest, and both characters, no matter how messed up their lives seem to become, both seem likable. When it comes to the sentimental scenes the performances make them work because the scenes seem sweeter than your average movie like this. But despite all my praise for these two the movie in my eyes belonged to one man, Paul Rudd. He gets all the best lines, well not all most of them. He features in most of the best scenes, most namely a magic mushroom sequences in Vegas that had me crying with laughter and a later one involving chairs that had me crying once again. His character once again is believable and his relationship with his slightly scary psychotic wife, played brilliantly by Leslie Mann, once again believable. All the supporting cast work well as well. I have to give a special mention to Jonah Hill who is hilarious in a later hospital sequence in the movie, and we will next be seeing in the brilliant looking Superbad, brought to us from the people who made Knocked Up!
The comedy side of the movie is what makes this quite possibly the most brilliant movie of the year. Now 40 Year Old Virgin in my eyes relied for the most part on sex gags and Steve Carrel, which is understandable given the nature of its plot. However, after a while I found it all a little bit boring. Here while we get a hell of a lot of sex gags, all of which are superb, there are also a lot more of the smaller kind of jokes that are hilarious as well. This nice balance, as well as the balance with the more dramatic side, make this movie as great as it is. The Vegas sequence has to be my favourite scene from a movie this year, and there are a large variety of jokes to be found. One of my personal favourites involves the mis-spelling of coming which once again had me crying with laughter. The sequence where the couple meet and "do the deed" is also very well done and hilarious. The movie is just full of so many jokes that its impossible to pick up on them all in just one sitting, I guarantee you will laugh for the majority of this movie.
So any faults? Some might question the length, hell I know I did when I saw it was a two hour running time before I went in. But surprisingly, for two hours this went very quick. This is unusual as in my eyes a two hour running time for a comedy is pretty much the death sentence for it. Fortunately the storyline works and the characters work so well that you don't care how long this is. This is the perfect date movie to be honest, it has the gags and humour for the guys, but the nice smaller romance stuff for the girls. It blends perfectly for a movie that is aimed at both sexes. In a year that I thought Bourne Ultimatum could not be topped as King of 2007, a small American comedy comes along and knocks it off its perch. This is a superb comedy here and I cannot wait to see it many times in the future.