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Movie Review for Pineapple Express (2008)
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Review #668 of 365 Movie Review of Pineapple Express (2008) [R] 111 minutes WIP™ Scale: $3.00 Where Viewed: Cinemark Century 16, Lakewood, CO When Seen: 8 August 2008 @ 7:00 pm DVD Release Date: Unscheduled (please check back)
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Directed by: David Gordon Green (Snow Angels) Written by: Seth Rogen (Drillbit Taylor) • Evan Goldberg (Superbad) with story by Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg
If you've never been a film critic, you've probably never thought about what it's like to be sitting there in anticipation as a film illuminates the screen and as it unfurls minute by minute slowly beginning to realize that there is probably not a single good thing you're going to be able to think of to write about this particular film. Such was the case when faced with the borderline incomprehensibly terrible Pineapple Express. To dispatch that right away, the name of the film comes from the name of the marijuana blend sold by one of the film's two protagonists, Saul Silver (James Franco). While the potent narcotic weed gives the film its title and a good portion of the plot points, that's where the effectiveness of the title ends. A better title for this film might have been: Apatow's Appalling Downward Spiral. I'll admit that I went into the cinema with a Superbad attitude having just seen Step Brothers—another Apatow's gone rotten fiasco film—but there somehow seemed to be hope. Seth Rogen was so great in Knocked Up which was also a very good movie. I promise, it's not my personal beliefs surrounding marijuana that made me hate this film so much. I raved about The Wackness—also about a marijuana-dealing kid.
…inane, pointless, ludicrous, and reckless.
No, I loathed Pineapple Express because it was: inane, pointless, ludicrous, and reckless. The script was horrendous. The plot was worse than being stuck barefoot surfing the edge of a mobïus strip made from a razor blade. Semi-intoxicated howler monkeys in heat performing a Beijing Opera could best the acting performances of Seth Rogen, James Franco, and the worst of the worst, Danny R. McBride. Who wrote this pile of dung beetle taste treats? Well, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are credited with writing the screenplay, but the story is also attributed to Judd Apatow himself. Personally, I blame Judd Apatow.
Semi-intoxicated howler monkeys in heat performing a Beijing Opera could best the acting performances…
He has created some cult masterpieces, even though I didn't care much for Superbad either, I loved 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and my all-time new favorite comedy, the incomparable Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby—which I'm still going to argue deserved consideration for Best Picture, sort of, well, at least Will Ferrell deserved consideration for Best Actor for his role as Ricky Bobby. Anyway, I digress, point is that Judd Apatow seems to be on vacation, and someone else is inhabiting his body and controlling his financial affairs. How else to explain these two torturously bad film releases in a row: Step Brothers and now Pineapple Express? If you throw in Drillbit Taylor, well, you've got a trifecta of Apatow films this year that just never should have been made in the first place and nobody would have missed them…ever.
The story begins and sort of ends with a drug addict, process-server named Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) who, just after sampling some Pineapple Express he picked up from his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco), inadvertently witnesses a murder by a drug king pin named Ted Jones (Gary Cole) and a police officer (Rosie Perez). A bud of the P.E. picked up by Jones's henchmen leads them on a trail to the only guy who sells the stuff in town and straight to Saul and then to Dale and then to Saul's friend Red (Danny R. McBride). That's pretty much it when it comes to the point of this farcical action, brain-dead comedy film. The best way to get the real Judd Apatow back on track will be for this film to get trounced at the box-office. Even people who think partaking of illegal drugs is perfectly fine who flock to this film will be disappointed. There's just nothing redeeming to say about it. Oh, and Dale Denton dating a high school girl? That was just plain off-putting as was pretty much everything about this hapless movie directed by David Gordon Green.
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1 comment:
first half of Pineapple Express was about half as good as Knocked Up; the second half was almost as bad as Freddy God Fingered
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