← Back to Reviews
in
#168 - Knocked Up
Judd Apatow, 2007
An unemployed slacker and an entertainment journalist find their respective worlds turned upside down after their one-night-stand results in an unwanted pregnancy.
I first watched Knocked Up on a returning international flight back in 2007 and on the basis of that viewing I ended up ranking this as my second least favourite film ever on a list I did a few years back. Even with such a condemnation, it was always in the back of my mind to give it a second chance, even though I've always been sort of skeptical about the quality of any film that had even the slightest connection to Judd Apatow. My original assessment was that Knocked Up was a bloated excuse for a comedy that mixed a somewhat unsurprising romantic comedy premise and proceeded to fill it with a bunch of irritating characters cracking jokes that seemed to be more for their own amusement than the audience's. Time to see what's changed...
Well, not all that much. Too much of the humour in this film feels like it relied too much on the male cast members riffing off one another (the most blatant example being Martin Starr's character being the constant butt of beard jokes throughout the film) and the fact that, with the possible exception of Seth Rogen's protagonist (because he at least grows up a bit during the film), they're all pretty damn obnoxious in their own ways. It doesn't help that on the other side of the snob-slob divide you have Katherine Heigl and Leslie Mann - while Heigl does her best with a fairly typical rom-com female lead role, Mann's uptight helicopter mum comes across as even more grating than she's even supposed to be. The fact that Heigl's character works for the E! Network seems to be an all-too-convenient excuse to cram in a cavalcade of cameos, to say nothing of all the well-known (or soon-to-be well-known) comedic faces that show up throughout the film that either don't get good material to work with or fail to properly work what little there is. I know that, given the director and actors involved, this film's jokes are probably going to earn their R rating through a load of gross humour, but only one really got a good laugh out of me. Also, I know that a pregnancy is supposed to last nine months, but that doesn't mean the film has to feel like it takes nine months. The dramatic elements aren't potent enough to justify this film lasting longer than 100 minutes, let alone 120.
In the end, I guess I have mellowed out a bit over this film. Certainly not enough to despise it completely, but it's still extremely lacklustre in virtually every regard. At least The 40-Year-Old Virgin, despite having a lot of the same problems with its approach to comedy, had a somewhat original premise to go along with it. Knocked Up has no such excuse and ends up combining the flaws of both standard Hollywood romantic comedies and stoner/bro comedies, making this a fairly difficult film to sit through (especially when it hits the two-hour mark). Though the two leads are thankfully not terrible enough to make the whole film feel like a chore, too much of it still does anyway thanks to a lot of characters that are too annoying to be funny. Then again, I might give it a third chance in 2023 and find it passable.
Judd Apatow, 2007
An unemployed slacker and an entertainment journalist find their respective worlds turned upside down after their one-night-stand results in an unwanted pregnancy.
I first watched Knocked Up on a returning international flight back in 2007 and on the basis of that viewing I ended up ranking this as my second least favourite film ever on a list I did a few years back. Even with such a condemnation, it was always in the back of my mind to give it a second chance, even though I've always been sort of skeptical about the quality of any film that had even the slightest connection to Judd Apatow. My original assessment was that Knocked Up was a bloated excuse for a comedy that mixed a somewhat unsurprising romantic comedy premise and proceeded to fill it with a bunch of irritating characters cracking jokes that seemed to be more for their own amusement than the audience's. Time to see what's changed...
Well, not all that much. Too much of the humour in this film feels like it relied too much on the male cast members riffing off one another (the most blatant example being Martin Starr's character being the constant butt of beard jokes throughout the film) and the fact that, with the possible exception of Seth Rogen's protagonist (because he at least grows up a bit during the film), they're all pretty damn obnoxious in their own ways. It doesn't help that on the other side of the snob-slob divide you have Katherine Heigl and Leslie Mann - while Heigl does her best with a fairly typical rom-com female lead role, Mann's uptight helicopter mum comes across as even more grating than she's even supposed to be. The fact that Heigl's character works for the E! Network seems to be an all-too-convenient excuse to cram in a cavalcade of cameos, to say nothing of all the well-known (or soon-to-be well-known) comedic faces that show up throughout the film that either don't get good material to work with or fail to properly work what little there is. I know that, given the director and actors involved, this film's jokes are probably going to earn their R rating through a load of gross humour, but only one really got a good laugh out of me. Also, I know that a pregnancy is supposed to last nine months, but that doesn't mean the film has to feel like it takes nine months. The dramatic elements aren't potent enough to justify this film lasting longer than 100 minutes, let alone 120.
In the end, I guess I have mellowed out a bit over this film. Certainly not enough to despise it completely, but it's still extremely lacklustre in virtually every regard. At least The 40-Year-Old Virgin, despite having a lot of the same problems with its approach to comedy, had a somewhat original premise to go along with it. Knocked Up has no such excuse and ends up combining the flaws of both standard Hollywood romantic comedies and stoner/bro comedies, making this a fairly difficult film to sit through (especially when it hits the two-hour mark). Though the two leads are thankfully not terrible enough to make the whole film feel like a chore, too much of it still does anyway thanks to a lot of characters that are too annoying to be funny. Then again, I might give it a third chance in 2023 and find it passable.