Pineapple Express Kills the Buzz

Rating: 4/10 (10 August 2008)

I enjoyed the trailers and went into this movie expecting to laugh. I've seen a couple other Seth Rogen movies and thought they were pretty good. But for Pineapple Express, the thirteen year old kids a few rows in front of us were the perfect audience. I don't know if it's because I'm out of college and in my mid-twenties, but the buzz wore off fast for me.
This movie has to be the longest stoner flick ever made. It gets boring. Basically they get high and into stoner movie situations, such as getting paranoid in the woods, into impossible cop chases, smoking pot with a bunch of grade school kids, smoking "tripod" joints, shooting ninjas, and ha, even making dick jokes. Get ready for two hours of this type of stuff.
Seth Rogen plays the same lovable loser from any other film he's in. He is a likable guy with cute little sayings (B.F.F.F) and references to gross things like poop or sex toys which are forced and intended to shock people into laughing. He plays a guy who dates a high schooler, smokes pot before going to his job of serving warrants, but I did feel some compassion for his character and liked him.
James Franco plays one of the least believable drug dealers. Get this, he even has the stoner dipsh*t "dialect," the kind a tie-dye shirt wearing suburban kid who has never seen pot outside of a computer screen may use. I was immediately turned off to the movie because because Franco acts like a stoner is supposed to act, and ends up not looking like a stoner. Franco effectively kills the buzz.
The highlight of the film is Danny McBride. He's an overweight "middleman" between Rogan and Franco who wears kimonos and bakes cakes for his dead cats. He promises to not tell the drug dealers where you are, but when they show up he tells them before they even ask. He drives a tiny Daewoo. The movie would've been funnier with this guy as the dealer and cutting Franco out of the movie altogether. But with the high-fiving victory over drug-dealing murderers and ninjas, I suppose it would have seemed weird to only have two good guys.
I know it's intentionally exaggerated, but only the best jokes are about as funny as a home video clip of a dad getting hit in the genitals by his son swinging a baseball bat. Some might consider Seth Rogan and the actors with whom he often works into becoming the next Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, or Steve Martin, but they've got a lot of work to do before that happens. In the meantime between now and when Pineapple Express is released on DVD, save your money and re-watch Half Baked.