Film Review – Knocked Up

Before entering the cinema to watch Knocked Up, we were slightly unsure about how to prejudge this film. It was almost like a double edged sword. Countless trailers and critics reviews have dubbed this one of the funniest comedies of the year.

This comment always pisses us off - it's only August! We’re sure September, October and November have equally hilarious  things to offer. But not December - that month is renowned for being full of shit Tim Allen Christmas cash-in films. So, the comedy of the year, we had to bear this in mind. Writer and director of Knocked Up is Judd Apatow was responsible for 2005’s 40 Year Old Virgin - a pretty decent film milking laughs at the expense of some American oddball whose cherry was surely getting quite mouldy. So, Apatow is back with another sex-based comedy film. Alarm bells started ringing; could this all be regurgitated from his previous film and presented in a different way?

Knocked Up essentially tells an age-old tale - man goes out clubbing, gets pissed and ends up shagging a stranger. However the difference with Knocked Up is that main character Ben Stone, played by Seth Rogen, doesn’t end up pulling some manky village bike who gives head for a pot noodle. Instead, he gets lucky with super-fit Alison Scott who has been out celebrating a job promotion. The two characters couldn’t be further apart. Ben  pretty much does nothing more that lie around doing pretty much fuck all getting wasted with his mates. He does have some sort of business venture though. He and his roommates are convinced their idea involving the seedy world of porn will make them megabucks.

Alison, on the other hand, is a career-driven women who is all about sticking to the rules and being not taking any risks – just not using a condom and getting knocked up. It’s only once we see the character of Alison develop early in the film that slight cracks in the whole story of the film appear. Call us daft, but we’ve always assumed that films are meant to be ways of escaping the shitty world we live in. We all know that Bruce Willis can’t save the world by blowing up a rock. So it’s accepted as a little bit of fun. However, this film seems to be blurring the boundaries of story and real life.

Alison works for the company E! which in fact is a real life company which deals with celebrities and other such matters. Call us twats if you want, but when we see a film, we don’t want to be reminded about the outside world. Constantly throughout the film, we are overcome with product placement with companies such as Google, Pepsi and McDonalds sneaking in there*. Imagine if Spider-Man just used mace to subdue his enemies. That would be shit. So putting that aside - it might just be one of our personal gripes - how does it square up to the tag of being the comedy of the year? Frankly, if you’re under sixteen this will probably be quite appropriate, but to anyone a bit more mature, boredom will quickly kick in.

As it's all about sex, there are constant references to all sorts of rude things. But don’t get us wrong, there are some brilliant one-liners in the film and if anything the two children who star in the film produce the best laughs. The innocence of a child kicks in especially when one asks what a prick is.  Sadly it seems that the film has imploded on itself due to the hype around it and the association with the director/writer hasn’t aided it. We were under the illusion it would be a full-on comedy with plenty of dark humour chucked in. However, the genre often seems to blur in the sickly style of a romantic comedy. After Ben realises that he has to pull his finger out and be responsible, it gets a little bit too daft and sentimental. The coming of age moment comes when he goes to find himself – only aided by a huge amount of magic mushrooms, surely only to fuck himself up in the near future. This did have so much potential and its almost like going to Disneyland and not seeing a fat man dressed as Mickey Mouse.

It is still a funny film, but towards the end we were itching to leave the cinema. No amazing or funny twists came when we thought they would and quite frankly the last 25 minutes of Knocked Up could have been shaved off and shoved on the DVD as an extra. Still it’ll make a killing at the box office as hormonal kids rush in to see jokes about willies, sperm and see multiple boobs and even a women’s gash! Yes, women’s lady lips have oddly got in to the film despite it being rated a 15. They’ll be a shortage of Kleenex across the land after teenage boys get their first real look at a half naked woman.  

*Oddly included in Knocked Up is a song by pikey-fighting Lily Allen! Yes that’s right, in a gangster-looking hip-hop club, her track Smile comes on. To be fair, it’s probably going to be the only time she’ll be heard in America seeing as how she can’t get in. Maybe she should rub her third nipple for luck. And get a visa.