Pineapple Express

It's come to my attention lately that there are very few mainstream comedies worth seeing lately. Maybe it's due to a maturing sense of cinematic awareness on my part or it could be that studios don't know what's funny anymore. Either way, there are few names left in the comedy game that I can trust anymore, luckily one of those names is still Judd Apatow. Following the success of last years breakout comedy Superbad, which thrust the uber-talented Michael Cera and Jonah Hill into the public eye and unleashed the writing styles of Apatow alum Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg on an unsuspecting world (both with writing credits on the underappreciated TV series Undeclared.) Now comes their sophomore feature length Pineapple Express.

I’ll go ahead and say right now that Pineapple Express is the type of movie that I’m normally likened to hate at first glance and without Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow’s names involved I may not have stepped into the theater in the first place. If it’s one sub-genre that I don’t find entertaining, it’s “stoner comedy.” I have trouble laughing at what is generally two guys sitting in a room bantering about how high they are, and unless there’s a pretty engrossing plot going on (a la Dazed and Confused ) I can usually find better things to be doing with my time. While marijuana is a prominent factor in Pineapple, the usual stoner mechanics takes a backseat to the actual story. The thing that proved funniest was that while they never draw attention to how much pot they’re smoking, what you realize is that 90% of everything they do is motivated by how high they are. This way, when either of the characters do something outlandish or unrealistic when faced with a situation, you don’t have to suspend your disbelief that far at all.

The script is consistently solid. Rogen and Goldberg have proven that Superbad, their 10 year pet project, was not just a fluke. Instead of injecting the mainstream with yet another in a long line of teen-comedy clones (College, The Rocker, the umpteenth American Pie sequel, etc. etc.) they’ve concocted a well timed action-comedy satire. Playing up the ridiculousness of most action movies (the never-ending ammunition, the conveniently placed and accessible firearms, the over the top splatter-gore) definitely kept the laughs coming.

It was good to see Seth Rogen and James Franco side by side again after eight or so years (since the disintegration of Freaks & Geeks, one of the most promising shows that never got a chance) and their chemistry is still right on. I've been defending Franco for years, in light of his role choices in a flurry of inspirational military academy flicks and the Spider Man franchise, and I was happy to see him knock this role out of the park. Rogen was good as usual, I'm curious as to how much was actually ad libbed and how much was scripted. There were some nice "guest" appearances, most notably Ed Begley Jr. ,Nora Dunn and the surprising return of Rosie Perez. I was also very impressed by newcomer Danny McBride (the new recruit in the Apatow Army after his breakthrough mockumentary The Foot Fist Way, of which I have yet to see.)

All in all, Pineapple Express is not just a Pot Comedy. It's a well developed action-comedy-satire that happens to have a fair amount of pot smoking in it. Needless to say I'm looking forward to Seth Rogen's take on the classic character The Green Hornet.