| Product: |
Knocked Up (DVD) |
| Date: |
29.02.08 (81 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Paul Rudd, an unusual mix of comedy styles
Disadvantages: A bit crude in places
Knocked Up is a surprising comedy, mostly because contrary to expectations, and the trailer, it is very funny, much more so than I ever would have thought.
Knocked Up is the tale of Ben (Seth Rogen) and Alison (Katherine Heigl). They meet in a club, get totally hammered and go home together. They have nothing in common... Ben is an out of work (he and his housemates are working on a website called Flesh of the stars that will catalogue every piece of nudity by an actress on film), drug taking, vulgar fat guy and she is a beautiful, professional interviewer for E News, an entertainment news station.
Their one night encounter leads to Alison becoming pregnant and the rest of the film follows how the two of them, plus their friends and family deal with the pregnancy and how it changes their lives.
Knocked Up is a mix between a standard Romantic Comedy (Rom-Com) and a film of the ilk of Road Trip and Old School. The soppy romance side of a girly film integrated with the rude, crude and jokey side of a blokes comedy. I may not actually agree with rom-coms being girly or crude and rude comedies being for blokes but that is the best way of putting it in a way that is easily understandable.
This twisting together of conventions probably should not work but the writing in Knocked Up is good enough that the disparity between the two types doesn't really collide. The two main characters come from the different styles and I think this is why it works, it even means that the complete lack of chemistry between the two leads, at least for the majority of the film, doesn't matter. There never was and never would be anything between them if it wasn't for the alcohol and one little accident.
This does matter later on in the film but by then it is not such a problem, you (as the viewer) have warmed to Ben. You still cannot see what Alison sees in Ben, why she wants to have anything to do with him, why she wants to keep the baby or why she wants him as a partner rather than just as the father to her child.
Knocked Up is unusual for a rom-com in that it is over two hours long, it never really drags though and the script, dialogue and jokes keep things purring along. This is never going to be considered a classic film, even in its own semi genres, but it makes you laugh again and again which is the whole point of a comedy after all.
Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen are two up and coming stars who will not have hurt their careers at all with this film, but also haven't done anything here to leap them into super stardom. The film is all about the two of them and how they cope with their little problem but it is the ensemble around them that brings out most of the laughs. Ben's housemates are rude, crude and vulgar every time they are on screen, a mixture of drugged out geeks and losers whose worldview is skewed far from reality.
The real stand out star turn though is from the fabulous Paul Rudd (Anchorman, Clueless) who steals every scene he is in as Pete, Alison's brother in law, especially in the hotel room with Rogen and some chairs. There is no way to describe how funny this scene is, you just have to see it for yourself!
Knocked Up really surprised me, I didn't expect much from it at all but found myself laughing out loud and thoroughly enjoying a delightful little comedy gem. It is far better than the trailers make you think and is well worth watching on a cold winters night when you need to relax and have a good laugh.
*For those wondering about the title look up the word in a dictionary and see its other meaning to get the stupid pun!*
Summary: A suprisingly enjoyable comedy
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