Movie Review - Knocked Up

This is part of my review backlog. I actually saw the movie a month ago, but am only now getting around to reviewing it.

Let me start by saying, this is the first "Team Apatow" film that I've seen. So there may be conventions I am unfamiliar with and I know he uses a lot of stock actors in his films.

Second disclaimer, this review is of the extended unrated DVD of the film, not the theatrical release.

I first became aware of Knocked Up when a friend pointed me to a deleted scene which they had released onto You Tube. The scene was the "Brokeback Mountain" deleted scene (in a shortened, edited form than the one which appears in the deleted scenes on the DVD.) Having seen it, and laughing my butt off, the thought went through my mind "If this was deleted and that funny, the rest of the movie must be fantastic."

When I finally got around to seeing the movie, I went into it not with that in mind, but rather, a "this should be fun," frame of mind.

In that I was not disappointed.

I remember seeing the trailers for this film and thinking it would be a comedy about pregnancy and, having two kids and been side by side with my wife while she went through them, I felt there would be some great gags about it.

I was wrong.

Yes, Katherine Heigl is pregnant in the film. Yes, she was impregnated via a one night stand with a, for lack of a better term, underachiever who's drifting through life. The trailer tells you all this. What the trailer doesn't tell you is the preganacy is a vehicle for a commentary on relationships from both the main couple, as well as Katherine Heigl's sister and her husband's perspective.

And really, that's what the movie is about: Relationships. It's about two people who would most likely have never met, let alone gotten together without the intervention of a judicious amount of alcohol, who, as a result of their one night stand face being parents and trying to make a relationship work.

I've read criticism that someone like Seth Rogan would never have had a chance at Katherine Heigl regardless if GBH was involved and I have to disagree. I thought Judd Apatow's handling of their first and subsequent interactions in the bar was plausible. Having never picked up anyone, or been picked up in a bar, I have no personal basis for comparison, but I did goto college and saw several unlikely reltionships form by various forms of inebriation lowering people's bullshit factor to the point where they are themselves without a lot of the walls they throw up in normal social situations. And, in cases like that a lot of people find that underneath it all, alot of us have common views and a desire to connect with someone.

So, with that in mind, the subsequent pregnancy put forward, what you are left with is two people, without the benfit of alcohol or marijuana (word of warning, there's a fair amount of drug humor in this film so, if that is not to your taste, you will want to avoid the movie,) who are trying to force down those walls and find things in common.

Unfortunately for them, their immediate role models for relationships are as follows:

Katherine Heigl's sister and her husband: The main sub-characters in the film, they have a relationship that is fairly toxic, but mostly for standard reasons (I'm not making judgement here on stereotyping, I've known several couples like this): She's a very dominant, agressive personality, mostly as a defensive reaction to the way the world has treated her, he's more laid back and really has no clue on how to assert himself. And you view them and think "you know, if he could tell her what he wants/needs without fear of an aggressive attack back at him (i.e. she actually listens to what he says without judging at any time,) a lot of what's "broken" in their relationship wouldn't even be an issue."

Seth Rogan's buddies which he lives with: With one exception, none of them are in a relationship and you get the impression that most of them are the type who would spend all day complaining about not being in a relationship until they got into one and then they would spend all day complaining about the hassle that the relationship is.

Seth Rogan's Dad: Divorced many times, never has had a stable relationship which lasted any significant amount of time.

So, there's not a lot of good pickings there.

But it does bring me to another positive of the movie: the casting.

In some ways, Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogan are secondary in this movie to the backing characters. Both of them are wonderful in their roles, with Seth Rogan really carrying the movie because, if he had failed in bringing the character of Ben to life and giving him the depth necessary for the film, the rest of the ensemble would not shine as well as they do.

Katherine Heigl's "sister" is played by Judd Apatow's real wife, Leslie Mann and she's brilliant. Very often when there's a dominant female character in a movie she's "the bitch" and that's all. Apatow gave his wife a good script to work with and she brings forward a character who's not one dimensional.

Paul Rudd is cast as her husband and, once again, he's perfectly cast. If miscast, both he and Leslie Mann would have been comic relief and that's it. But he's a real person and it shows in both the writing as well as his delivery of the character.

Harold Ramis has a small role as Seth Rogan's dad in this film and, once again, he delivers it exceptionally well. When he's on screen either via a phone call, or in person, you get the sense that, unlike his portrayal of Russell Ziskey in Stripes, that he's not playing this for laughs, though he delivers one of the best lines in the film. I liken this to one of his more mature roles, such as the role of Mark Harmon's best friend, Allen Appleby in "Stealing Home," (an underated film in my eyes.)

Finally, I have to mention Alan Tudyk and Kristin Wiig's characters who play off of each other so well. You may recognize Alan Tudyk as Wash from Firefly/Serenity or his role as Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball, but, unless you saw the original Joe Schmo show on Spike, you may not recognize Kristin Wiig (she was brilliant in Joe Schmo, BTW.) In the scenes which they appear, it almost seems like Katherine Heigl's character is a vehicle to allow these two to have their moments and they have them brilliantly.

So, what about the rest of the Apatow regulars? Honestly, they did their jobs well, but, I really didn't care much about them and most of the performances were good for what they were written as, however, I thought, for the most part they blended together.

And that, in some ways, is where the movie falls down for me. I bought the premise of the movie. I breathed in the smoke and even inhaled. But, there were certain running gags with his buddies that I felt could have been cut without losing much from the film. Now, I do have to say, I haven't seen the theatrical release, so some of what irritated me may very well have been trimmed or even cut in the movie people saw in the theaters.

Still, in the end of the day, I laughed, I empathised with the characters and I was entertained.

Movie review: Pathfinder

Last night I finally got to see Pathfinder on cable.

A friend of mine classifies this film, along with 300, as being in the "gorenography" category, and I can easily see why.

Of course, without the gore, you'd drop a 99 minute movie down to an 80 minute movie and the lack of plot would be even more glaring.

But, I digress. Let's start with cinematography.

This movie had a lot of potential. You had a fantastic setting, with amazing trees and mountains as well as plenty of coastline to play with.

And then they chose to film the majority of it in dark settings with little focus to the actual shots. It appeared that the only time we ever got the camera to focus on a particular part of a scene was when atrocities were being commited, about to be commited, or the director chose to try and have scenery convey emotion because he wasn't capable to getting the performance out of his actors.

I'm familiar with most of the actors in this film from other roles. They have ability. Even with as limited a script as this was (the entire movie is, for all intents and purposes, one giant chase scene, limited to people on foot or horseback,) there was enough there to both draw out good performances as well as give the viewer something to care about. However, between the script and the director, they could have just as easily cast the US Olympic swim team in this movie and it wouldn't have made a difference (my apologies to the US Olympic swim team if you are, in fact, all deserved winners of Tony, Emmy, Oscar and Golden Globe awards, my point was to chose a group whom I presume has limited acting experience but has united toward a common goal and suggest they could have replaced the professionals due to the limitations previously mentioned.)

So, cinematography is out, directing is out, I'm initimated the writing has issues, so let's go there.

This movie had potential. The concept wasn't bad (Norsemen raid the United States in approximately 1100, leave behind a kid who won't commit atrocities against the indigenous population, whos adopted by the indigenous people and grows up. Jump forward 15 years later and our nasty Norsemen have come back to settle for good, much to the objection of the one warrior who's trained with a sword (for those of you who are worried about spoilers, I've covered maybe the first 10 minutes of the movie.)

However, after that, there's not much that the movie has to offer. Yes, there's a strong female character love interest, but, for the most part, she gets in the way, and, while she's supposed to be a motivating factor, really, she could have been a "blood brother" and it would have been no different a movie for the most part.

Could this movie been written better? Absolutely, but it would have been a different movie. Not a chase film. And the movie would not have suffered from this change.

Finally, I'm going to address the action. In a word, I'd rather see the Sylvester Stallone epic "Cobra" that endure the action sequences from this film again. Once again, with a better director vision, this could have been an enjoyable chase/action film. Never once did I get the sense of urgency from the action. The lead character, at several points in time is being chased by a whole heck of a lot of ugly, armored, vicious beasts of human beings who have proven several times that the indigenous people are essentially ants to be removed from the picnic before you sit down to eat, yet, at no real time do we get the impression that this is more than a training exercise for him.

So, with most of the urgency removed, what's left?

The fight sequences are, for the most part, uninspired and too one sided to be of any interest. I suspect, even if I were of an age where this movie would have appealed to me, that the lighting was too dark to "enjoy" (if that's the right word) the various gratuitous (and believe me, they were gratuitous) limb and sundry body part removals. There wasn't even enough "spatter" to make Joe Bob Briggs raise an eyebrow.

So, as I mentioned at the top of the review, this movie was classified by a buddy of mine as Gorenography, but, honestly, I don't think it even deserves that classification. To classify it in that genre, would imply it deserves to be there. Instead, it would be better to shuffle it off to the side as wanting to be in that category, but not making it there. Not for lack of trying, but rather because to give it that much notice would possibly suggest someone else should see this movie.

And, since it didn't meet the "I was entertained" criterion, better to leave it to the side where it can moulder away.