Katherine Heigl Gets Knocked Up by Seth Rogan.
Written: Jun 02 '07 (Updated Jun 03 '07)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Very entertaining with plenty of laughs, mostly great cast.
Cons: Drags at a couple of points.
The Bottom Line: This movie is pregnant with comedy.
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| chelledun's Full Review: Knocked Up |
After three consecutive weeks of disappointing summer movies, mr_chelledun and I had almost given up all hope of an enjoyable movie season. Fortunately, the raunchy comedy Knocked Up proved to be a winner and renewed our faith in film. This movie isn't perfect, but it definitely entertained us and gave plenty of laughs. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Knocked Up to anyone who typically enjoys well-made R-rated comedies.
Knocked Up tells the story of a one-night stand gone wrong. Motivated, gorgeous E! news anchor Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) hooks up with jobless slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogan) at a club and ends up pregnant. This naturally interferes with Alison’s blossoming career and Seth’s busy schedule of pot smoking and looking for nude scenes in movies with his strange mix of buddies. The two try to become a couple despite their completely different lifestyles, with mixed results. In the meantime, Alison lives with her control freak sister Debbie (Leslie Mann), whose constant feuding with husband Pete (Paul Rudd) does not inspire anyone to seek a lifetime commitment.
My Thoughts
I laughed a lot while watching Knocked Up. Pregnancy and childbirth are ripe with opportunities for humor, and I felt like this film’s jokes were fresher than average. Surprisingly, I actually felt like the humor here was a bit cleaner than in comparable films. Yes, there is profanity, and yes, there is lots of drug humor. However, the filmmakers refrain, for the most part, from using body humor for an easy laugh and the film is stronger for it. Much of the movie’s comedy is biting and downright witty. Some of Knocked Up’s funniest scenes took place at Alison’s job, where filmmakers get a chance to take jabs at Hollywood’s obsession with both thinness and pregnancy. Ryan Seacrest, Steve Carrel, and several other celebrities make humorous cameos as themselves. I also laughed out loud at several scenes where Alison and Ben try to pick a gynecologist and are subjected to medical loonies of various types, many of whom I’ve personally seen before.
Despite being fairly brash and pretty obscene at parts, Knocked Up turns out to be a surprisingly sweet story. Although I have a natural disdain for movie romance I actually found myself rooting for the couple by the end. Rogan manages to make likeable a type of character I usually detest – the unemployed slacker. In the meantime, I found myself also enjoying the character of Alison as portrayed by Heigl. She clearly conveys the vulnerability she feels due to the unexpected pregnancy without becoming a victim, and embraces a general go-with-the-flow attitude that I myself could learn from. The leads have a surprising chemistry, given their physical differences. I also loved seeing Paul Rudd as the totally overtaxed Pete. His character actually has perhaps the most complexity, which is appropriate as I think Paul Rudd is a pretty decent actor.
Knocked Up has a few minor flaws. The film runs a little long at two hours and nine minutes. I think twenty minutes or so of romantic drama between Alison and Ben could easily have been cut out, as some such scenes kill the film’s momentum a bit. I personally would have preferred that the movie focus more on comedy and less on deep emotional revelations. Also, I found myself driven batty by Leslie Mann’s portrayal of Debbie. Mann plays the character in a way that is just too loud, shrill, and demanding for me to sympathize with, although I felt like the filmmakers expected that I would “take her side” so to speak. The film leaves tensions between Pete and Debbie so completely unresolved that I have to wonder if some important scene was left on the cutting room floor.
Overall…
If you’re looking for a summer comedy with guaranteed laughs, Knocked Up fits the bill. We left the theater smiling and most folks around us seemed to agree that the movie was very funny. I’m not sure that the film is quite as hilarious or memorable as, say, 40-Year-Old Virgin, but it certainly isn’t a bad way to spend two hours on a hot summer day.
Recommended:
Yes
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