Hit and Miss movie, ignore the hype

Rating: 4/10 (17 December 2005)

I kept hearing the hype about this movie and decided to finally rent it on DVD to find out if it was really that funny. It's mostly not that great, at least for me. There were a few complaints along the way, as well as some good things:
1. Why did I know, before I even saw the first frame of this movie, that the "40 year old virgin" was going to be a dork/nerd/geek/weirdo? Oh my god, people, do you absolutely HAVE to be so predictable? Isn't it POSSIBLE for a virgin to be a normal, functioning member of society? Instead, this guy is a typical dork, a loner stuck in a 1977 time warp where he still collects toys and paints toy figurines. He has no friends, dresses badly, and doesn't have social skills. Let's not forget that he also still rides a bicycle and never learned to drive a car. Hmm, any other stereotypical stupidity we could trot out, while we're at it? Oh yeah...
2. Don't forget, a 40 year old virgin man would also know NOTHING about sex, right? After all, he's a virgin. WRONG. This guy would be the MASTER (pun intended) of porn. He would have the world's largest collection of porn videos and would know all about how to "pleasure one's self". Yet, this movie assumes that he knows so little about the female anatomy that he thinks a woman's breasts feel like...sandbags?? Puhleeze. And the way his friends find out that he's a virgin in this movie is so forced that they would have been better off if they had just paused the movie and had the director do a voice over that says "...and here's where Andy's friends find out he's a virgin. And now, we'll go to our next scene."
3. The movie makers would probably tell you that the message this movie sends is that it's "okay" to be a virgin. But the message they actually send in this movie is that it's not okay, because you'll end up as a unhappy, maladjusted, single dork who collects toys.
4. Jane Lynch does a great, understated job of portraying Paula, Andy's boss. No over-the-top performance here, but seething with sexual frustration...nicely done. I would like to point out, however, that what her character does in this movie would be considered sexual harassment of the absolute highest order. If it were a male doing it to a female, N.O.W. would have their panties all in a knot.
5. Kudos also to Gerry Bednob, who plays Mooj, a character that they could have made an entire movie around...LOL! Although the "cursing Indian guy" has been done to death and is kind of a trite character, he was very well done here and hilarious in every scene he was in. I want more of Mooj!
6. Steve Carell was endearing as the lead character, and Catherine Keener was serviceable as his love interest.
7. SPOILER- Trish comes over to Andy's house to tell him it's okay with her that he's a virgin, only to find that he has a porn video collection (previously forced on him by one of his co-worker buddies). Could someone please explain to me how she suddenly comes to the conclusion that he must be some kind of serial sex killer because he has porn videos? That particular plot point was so WEAK that the writer/director should be embarrassed that it was left in the film. I would be more worried about a 40 year old man that DOESN'T have a porn video collection of some kind. Yet, this is supposed to be the event that causes the big conflict in the movie...LAME. END SPOILER.
Overall, it was an okay movie, but only as a rental on a slow night. The humor was mostly low-brow, an obvious effort to be "Something about Mary"-ish, and some of the characters were forgettable. There was potential here as far as the concept goes, but the "40 year old virgin" ultimately didn't satisfy me.