Pineapple Express ( Movie )
C -
I have to quote some fellow reviewers at the top of this review just because I’m utterly baffled:
“You’ll go limp from laughing.” - Travers
“As a result, yes, it’s a druggie comedy that made me laugh.” - Ebert (***1/2!)
“As loose and playful as major studio movies get.” - Onion (91!)
What?!?!! What movie were these people watching?! The movie is absolutely unwatchable until the last 10 minutes, which are pretty good at best. Dear David Gordon Green, learn how to leave the camera on something that is good! Every time something moderately entertaining is about to happen (re: James Franco is onscreen), he cuts to something stupid (re: Seth Rogen). Don’t get me wrong, Rogen is fine. He acts like himself in every role he’s ever been in: An awkward, slightly funny stoner that rambles alot and gets old after about 15 minutes. This movie takes really boring locations and has really boring things happen in them. Sure, there are laughs to be had, mainly when we see Franco reduced to a child by incredibly powerful weed. Otherwise, it’s really talky and not that smart. Not smart you say? A criticism of a pot movie you wonder? Yes! Pot movies can still be smart you fucking hippy. Putting your thumb through your jean zipper while hitchhiking to simulate a penis is sort of funny, but cheap and stupid and not a reason to watch a movie again.
Also, the “action” in this “first ever action weed comedy” is stupid. There are about 3 action scenes, and they’re lame. Real lame. At least in Harold & Kumar (a better, still bad movie) someone rides a lion or a tiger or some shit. I forget but I can imagine that if I was high that would’ve been funny. There are none of those moments in this movie!! Someone gets an ashtray off the head, and I laughed, but come on, that’s not a high joke. This movie is just so boringgggggg.
Fist Foot Way guy by the way, is already annoying me. You’re not Will Ferrell…….. For Christ’s sake, Will Ferrell isn’t even Will Ferrell anymore! Every 5 things he says is funny, but he says so many things that the good lines are lost in crappy jokes.
I went into this movie really hoping that I would enjoy it. I came out really nervous about Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow’s futures. It’s that bad. Apatow, as predicted by some (re: Me), has used up his good jokes. Rogen is beginning to show himself for who he truly is. These two know how to do one thing, prove to the rest of Hollywood that it’s ok for gay guys to make movies about being gay. If you think any Apatow movie is about anything else other than that, you need to rewatch his entire catalog. Girls are an afterthought in every film, and not because he’s sexist, but because he loves guys. I’m fine with it, but it’s getting old to disguise it as anything other than what it is. Franco’s character, as my friend Craig said, was onto something great for the first half of this movie. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough shots of him in the first 45 minutes, and by the time the camera finally gives him some time, his character has become a closet homosexual who admits his desires only when he is really really high.
His “bromance” approach to every movie is getting real old. We get it, guys are cool and do funny things when girls aren’t around. All of a sudden a girl comes into the picture and the awkward guy whose funny to his nerd friends is speechless in front of the girl that’s way too hot for him. Yawwwwnnn.
If anyone says anything about how this movie was “made really well and efficiently” and how “it’s the first of its kind” I’ll hit them. Let me bottom line it for you: This movie goes nowhere, and it’s gets there really slowly. Franco tries to hoist this movie on his shoulders ala Heath Ledger, but doesn’t have the script on his side, or apparently the director. By the time he ALMOST gets his chance, I just didn’t care anymore. Only at the very end did they ALMOST grab me back, but it was too little, too late.
