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Instead of going on another Apatow rant, I decided to skip it this time around. Jason Segel however, deserves a little recognition. Starting off with small roles in popular teen comedies Can't Hardly Wait and Dead Man on Campus, he gained some popularity by playing Nick Andopolis, Linda Cardellini's drummer boyfriend in the hit series Freaks and Geeks. He later did a few episodes of Apatow's other big hit, Undeclared before he more-or-less disappeared for about 5 years. He resurfaced again with a supporting role in last year's Knocked Up, and now after 10 years in the business, he's getting his chance to headline - and write, I might add - his own movie.
In tonight's film, Jason Segel stars as Peter Bretter, a struggling musician living with Hollywood superstar Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). In between scoring her hit TV series "Crime Scene", and lounging around on the couch, Peter is working on a Muppet-style Dracula rock opera. Things seem to be going along smoothly in their 5 year relationship, when out of the blue Sarah dumps him, and takes off with the overly-cocky and overly-sexual British musician Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). To get away from all his memories, Peter impulsively travels to Hawaii at an attempt to clear his mind. As fate would have it, the only resort on the island with a vacancy turns out to be the same one his now ex-girlfriend and her new rocker boyfriend are vacationing in. Just when it seems things couldn't get any worse for our leading man, he finds himself attracted to the beautiful resort employee Rachel (Mila Kunis), who might be just who he needs to help him get his head on straight, and get back on track with his life.
I was surprised at first that this film received an R rating. It's pretty uncommon for a comedy to go over that PG-13 line for fear of losing a large portion of its audience. After only 10 minutes of the movie, I was subject to plenty of profanity, and to my surprise, male full frontal nudity. I tip my hat to Mr. Segel for having the *cough* balls to bare all in his first major movie role. It was quite the change from every other comedy with 40 different drunk girls flaunting their stuff like there's no tomorrow. As far as romantic comedies go, I'd have to say this was right up there with Knocked Up in terms of being crude, and for lack of a better word - raunchy. R rating well earned.
Just like Seth Rogen, I've been a big fan of Jason Segel since I saw him in Freaks and Geeks. He always stood out as one of those people you knew was funny outside of the lines. This is made pretty apparent in this movie, not only because he wrote the script, but because a lot of it is improvised. Anyone can memorize lines and give a funny delivery. Okay, almost anyone. But the people I think are truly funny are the ones who can run with a scene, delivering line after line, and the best ones work their way into the film. After seeing Segel's work in Knocked Up, it was fairly obvious he possessed this talent, and it seemed only fair for him to get a chance at creating his own screenplay. From what I understand, many of the events in the movie were taken from real-life experiences Segel had in the past, and wrote into the script. I was very surprised with Mila Kunis in this one. Like most people, I'd only watched her in the occasional episode of That 70's Show, and I could not stand her. I can appreciate how well she handled the role of the "bimbo", but she really just annoyed me. As skeptical as I was, she shed this shallow and obnoxious typecast for this role, and pulled it off beautifully. She was cute, sweet, and pretty much everything you wanted Jason's character to end up with. While I think that Russell Brand was a fantastic choice for the cocky, ridiculous British singer Aldous Snow, I feel that Kristen Bell could have been changed out for any number of young actresses. She's cute, and definitely fills the role, but I just think she didn't do much for the film. It was also great to see Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Bill Hader show up in brief albeit hilarious cameos.
I really don't want to compare this to Knocked Up for a number of reasons. The first being that while this had a lot of familiar faces from the Apatow crew, it was apparent he had less of an influence on it. Also, while it was along the same lines of Knocked Up, it didn't have the same "it's time to grow up" vibe to it, as most Apatow films have. It certainly dealt with adult issues, but it did it with a more naive and childish approach. Don't take this the wrong way however, as it worked for the movie perfectly, and it was a great start to what I can only hope is a long - and well deserved - career for Jason Segel. While Pineapple Express looks to be the comedy of the year for me, I think that this one has a very good chance of sneaking into first place.
10/10.
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There has been a lot of talk about how funny "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is. Critic Richard Roeper has been touting it as one of the funniest films ever made. Its current Rotten Tomatoes score is a lot better than most independent dramas; and, for a comedy, that's pretty impressive. So, I went into the film expecting to laugh - expecting to laugh a lot. And I did. But to call "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" one of the funniest films ever made is a bit of an overstatement. I don't know if I would call it the funniest film of 2008. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is another one of those Judd Apatow inspired pictures that features the same actors, the same kinds of dick and fart jokes and the same amount of heart and humanity that is supposed to even things out in the end. But, at some point, you have to start questioning some of the tactics of these kinds of films. What worked for pictures like the inspired "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" don't necessarily work for all of the other pictures in the catalog. With "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", Apatow tackles the losing of ones virginity. With "Knocked Up", Apatow tackles parenthood. With "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Apatow's team is tackling break-ups. It's like they are covering every major issue a twenty-something male faces in his life. There's nothing wrong with that. I just want to start seeing better rewards.
In his first leading role, Jason Segel (who also wrote the screenplay) stars as Peter Bretter, a young musician who happens to be dating Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the star of the hit drama "Crime Scene", for which Peter composes the music. The film opens with Sarah breaking up with Peter, sending him into an immediate downward spiral. He doesn't know what to do without her and spends most of his days crying like a baby and working on his rock opera version of "Dracula". His best friend, Brian (Bill Hader) convinces Peter to take a vacation, and he does - to Hawaii. The problem is that Sarah and her new hard rocking boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) have also come to the same resort to vacation. Cue to the crying again. But, soon, Peter meets and falls for the hotel customer service agent, Rachel (Mila Kunis), and Sarah slowly starts fading into the background. The resort is also home to a wide assortment of Apatow regulars, including Jonah Hill as a pseudo-homosexual restaurant manager who has an unhealthy obsession with Sarah's new rocker boyfriend, and Paul Rudd as the local surf guru with short term memory problems. It would not be an Apatow production without these random cameos, and we've come to expect them.
First off - haven't we seen all of this before? I know I certainly have. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a culmination of plot devices from numerous other romantic comedies, except it has the whole Apatow branding going for it. There nothing very original about the film, from the same dialog that we hear in every film like this, to the predictability of the character choices that make us constantly question just how stupid human beings really are in the film world. What is the point of having the lead character completely naked at the beginning? What purpose does it serve other than to say to the audience - "Hey, look what I did!" I also had a problem with the lack of connectivity between some of the scenes at the resort. It felt like the filmmaker had shot these random collection of scenes and just lined them up, one after another, for a little while, paying little attention to whether or not they fit into any grande scheme of storytelling. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is almost too haphazard in the way that it takes these characters that we have grown to like and places them in these ridiculous situations with these supporting characters that seem so trivial and contrived. And what is Jason Segel but a 2008 version of Seth Rogen? He has a little more dramatic flair, but they are basically the same character, with just a few minor differences.
All of that said, everyone seems to be having a blast in the film. Jason Segel is quite charming as Peter and does a good job with his first leading role. He probably has a nice future ahead of himself after this picture. Kristen Bell is quite lovely in her role as Sarah Marshall, especially during her hilarious clips from her TV show with William Baldwin - those were the most memorable aspects of the film for me. Russell Brand steals the show during most of his scenes as the obnoxious Aldous Snow, but that character is so over the top that it seems a little out of place in this picture. Paul Rudd gets just downright annoying in his role, as does Jonah Hill. The best performance all around comes from Mila Kunis as the customer service agent who falls for Peter. She is a real find here, and I am glad that she is finally getting the cinematic recognition she deserves.
But, will "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" make you laugh? You bet your ass it will. I laughed quite a bit. I loved the stuff with the "Dracula" musical and I thought the ending of the film was just hysterical. I loved the "Crime Scene" segments with William Baldwin, and then the special one at the end with Jason Bateman. On the whole, this was an affective comedy. However, calling it one of the funniest films ever made is just laughable in itself. As mentioned before, I personally didn't even think it was one of the funniest films of 2008. I laughed more at "Smart People". But, you will go see the film and probably love it, and Apatow fans have a new idol in Jason Segel, so I guess Seth Rogen is out of work for a while. But, I do want to stress that this kind of humor is going to very quickly get old to a lot of people. Right now, it's the hot thing to do, but it's going to wear out its welcome very soon and these kinds of dick and fart jokes will just not be funny anymore. I am glad I saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". But, an hour or so later, I'd already forgotten it.
6/10.
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0 out of 3 users found this review helpful.
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Dumped![Forgetting Sarah Marshall [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xRGz4S8AL._SL75_.jpg "Forgetting Sarah Marshall [Blu-ray]")
