It's the greatest stoner comedy ever!! It has a few problems here and there but I laughed a lot.

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2008)

Well over the years we've had Cheech and Chong, to the recent Harold and Kumar. These famous duos are both stoner comedy icons. And now we have a new pot smoking duo: Dale Denton and Saul Silver (Seth Rogen and James Franco). Pineapple Express begins with Dale Denton, a 25 year old pot smoking process server, who just so happens to be dating a high school girl. Saul Silver is the dim-witted pot dealer whom Dale buys weed from, and desperately wants to be friends with Dale. One day after buying rare weed from Saul, named Pineapple Express, Dale puffs a joint in front of the man's house he is about to "serve". It is here that Dale witnesses the owner of the house Ted Jones (Gary Cole), and a police officer Carol (Rosie Perez), murder an Asian man at the window. Dale speeds off after getting rid of the joint, but it turns out Ted Jones is a drug lord, and the second he finds the rare joint he immediately knows it came from Saul. Dale and Saul now band together to run away from the dealers, and realize they may not be able to trust the police either. Ted sends a band of strange hit men (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) to hunt down Dale and Saul. But as the pot smoking duo continue to only get in more trouble, they have no realization they're about to end up up in the middle of a drug war: Between Ted Jones' crew and the Asian drug dealers. Now with the help of Saul's friend Red (Danny Mcbride), they decide to take action with a fine arsenal of guns to boot!
Let me start off by saying that Pineapple Express is the greatest stoner comedy I've ever seen. I've seen bits and pieces of the Cheech and Chong movies. I've seen both Harold and Kumar movies, the first one was great, the sequel not so much. And although Half Baked used to be the epitome of stoner comedy for me, it was just a little too short and thin on plot to be great. Pineapple Express has a plot, characters that are very funny, good performances, classic one liners, and a great deal of entertaining action. The transition from Comedy to Action movie doesn't exactly mesh together perfectly, but it still provided laughs through its sheer preposterous goofiness. And who says a stoner comedy has to be perfect. Are stoners themselves perfect in real life? No. Walking in to see Pineapple Express expecting perfection is sudden death.
This movie could have been a misfire if it wasn't for the excellent team up of Seth Rogen and James Franco. The two characters blaze up a joint in almost every scene, and provide huge laughs through the hi-jinks they get into. They have really funny charisma together, and some of the parts depicting how blazed they are really ring true. Combine them with Danny Mcbride, and the film only got funnier because now it turns into a pot smoking trio. This may be Mcbride's breakthrough role, just like Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Mclovin) in Superbad. I thought he was very funny when he starred in The Heartbreak Kid, in fact he was one of the only things funny about that movie, and I'm glad he may finally glad recognition after this role. The first 5 minutes are set in 1937, and involve an experiment on the effects of marijuana, and the test subject just so happens to be played by Bill Hader. I won't give anything else away but it's one of the best parts of the movie. A lot of stoner comedies depend solely on the charisma of their leading characters. Pineapple Express has that and much more.
What I also liked about Pineapple Express is it's brand of humor towards pot. It takes a few chances and raises the bar on stoner comedies. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay tried to raise the bar by adding lots of gross out humor, and even a scene where the duo blaze with President Bush. That was even more preposterous than the actiony explosion-filled ending to this movie. There is a scene in Pineapple Express where Dale and Saul sell some weed to a few middle schoolers, and end up getting high with them. This scene offended plenty of people for age reasons, but amused many others including me. Maybe I'm desensitized, I don't know. Pot is the least harmful drug out there, it is even safer than alcohol...Come on admit it. Does that mean I like the idea of pre-teens toking up? No, definitely not...in real life! On screen it's funny, I can't really explain why, and feel free to call me a hypocrite. I liked that Pineapple Express took these chances, because it only made it funnier. I go on the IMDb boards for Pineapple Express, and most of what I see is people bashing the film and weed in general. You know what, if you don't like the idea of people smoking pot then why did you choose to see Pineapple Express? And as for weed in general, people have to learn to live their own life and stop complaining about what other people do.
Finally a stoner comedy that raises the bar. Pineapple Express is a fun summer comedy that, while not perfect, has a lot of laughs. I give Pineapple Express a 4.5 out of 5.