Product: Funny People
Rating: 2.0
Meanders More Than The Mighty Mississip
Around 110 minutes into this Judd Apatow marathon I started checking my watch. And then I found myself rooting for an ending. . .any ending. Just end movie, end. Yet FUNNY PEOPLE mercilessly droned on for another half hour, culminating in predictable endings for the story's alleged love triangle and friendship between the two central male characters (Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan). Which begs the question: If everyone watching knows what's going to happen, why not wrap this puppy up and be done with it?Granted, Apatow is attempting a darker story than his zany earlier offerings. Sandler plays a comedic superstar who learns he's ailing from a deadly blood disease; accordingly Sandler deadpans this role, which only makes him completely and irretrievably unlikable. Rogan as the nobody friend of Sandler actually has some funny moments as he develops his standup routine over the course of the film, yet unfortunately there are too few of them to salvage a movie that meanders and sloshes its way to a yawnfest ending. Eric Bana is actually refreshing playing the hubby of Sandler's former love interest (Leslie Mann, anyone?), yet he arrives too late for his energy to create any positive effect. The ensemble cast (including Jonah Hill, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Schwartzman) even looks tired and bored as FUNNY PEOPLE enters its second hour--quite the contrast from Apatow'sThe 40-Year-Old Virgin, a comedy Apatow has yet to successfully replicate.--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning