"Knocked Up" and out...of 2 hours I'll never get back

Rating: 3/10 (6 July 2007)

I feel it is my duty as a proactive thinker and cinema fan to level some serious complaints against the unfunny, un-moving, un-touching, un-realistic farce of a farce called "Knocked Up." I know film does not need a basis in realism, but when critics hail a film for its sense of 'accuracy' in real-life terms, I carry a whisper of that with me into the theater, whether it is comedy, drama, horror, or avant-garde surrealism. That "Knocked Up" has a 92% 'fresh' rating at RottenTomatoes implies one of two things: 1) that film critics need to leave their homes/apartments once in a while and experience life outside the vicarious lens of cinema; or 2) that said critics, in their bubble of maintaining a bar by which the public sets their tastes by, are very out-of-touch with humor derived from real-life situations (a possible 3) is that the other summer comedy offerings are simply so bottom-of-the-barrel that this looks brilliant by comparison).
Or perhaps it's because writer/director Judd Apatow is just so "hot" right now--hey, he made "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (which I loved, by the way), and "Knocked Up" can only be as good, if not better! Right?!? Well, NO. "Virgin" was not a solitary Apatow effort; in the co-writer's chair was the very funny and talented Steve Carrel (who has successfully picked up the Comedy Crown once held by James Carrey), and after seeing "Knocked Up," you can almost tell where the Apatow/Carrel script gradations occur (Apatow: the bar/pick-up scenes; Carrel: the whole of Andy Stitzer). "Virgin" had a strong anchor in Carrel, who also hit the right notes of depression, anxiety, joy, and sarcasm in "Little Miss Sunshine." In "Knocked," Seth Rogen (a funny supporting character in "Virgin") shows no leading-man quality, even in the 'unlikely' way the film laboriously sets up; Katherine Heigl, the E! producer (yeah, very realistic, isn't it) to whom he does the titular deed, brings nothing exceptional out of his character, since her character is also a shallow, contrived cliché (and certainly acted as one).
Like an extended sitcom (Apatow worked in television before becoming a Hollywood hitmaker), "Knocked Up" writhes in textbook stereotypes, clichés, and generalizations. As other critics have keenly pointed out, Heigl's 'attraction' to Rogen is a Screen writing 101 contrivance, and the film ultimately gives us no satisfactory justification for this relationship (of course, the film progresses under the 'realistic' pretense that we should not care about such unimportant details). Does it even need saying that this unlikely couple will try to make things work, have some arguments, and wind up together as Better People in the end? Countless films with predictable structures have held my interest better than "Knocked Up," through innovations in character, dialog, or simply plot twists.
I kept wondering, as the audience broke out into roars of laughter, if there was something I was missing. For the record, I am a 26-year old, single white male, and I do have a sense of humor. My mind cycled through potential audiences for "Knocked Up": married couples, people in long-term relationships, parents, and...potheads. While it is Apatow's clear intent to have me rolling in the aisles with every stale-in-five-years pop-culture reference (of which there are many, camouflaged as 'punchlines' to 'jokes'), I came to the conclusion that, if nothing else, I should be LOLing at Rogen's pathetic roommates. You see, they want to start a website displaying video clips of celebrity nudity (any Howard Stern listener will see this unfunny 'punchline' coming from the get-go)! They all get pink-eye! They make Taliban jokes about a roommate who's agreed to a beard-bet! And, they...smoke lots of pot! In another movie, these gags may have worked, but Apatow's method is to just have the audience gawk, expecting the sheer simple overstatement to elicit impressed guffaws. Tenacious D invoked that type of humor in a more creative and FUNNY way last year, but their movie tanked (explains a lot, doesn't it?).
While I sat waiting for "Knocked Up" to unveil some revelation about existence that I was somehow missing, I could only come to one conclusion as the credits began rolling: audiences and critics alike want their 'realistic comedy' coated in an impenetrable layer of super-sweet sitcom frosting. Oh, yeah, and for the slob hero to 'change' so he can earn the affections of a girl who looks like Barbie. LMFAO.