Review of Pineapple Express (2008) by Eric B — 17 Jul 2012

Seth Rogen returns to his routes of drugs, profanity, and if not sex, sex references in the new buddy comedy Pineapple Express. Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) a process server by day and a drug-obsessed monster by night, witnesses a murder while smoking in his car. He is dumfounded, but scared, and drives off screaming to find his drug dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco) to articulate what just happened. Now, get ready for a bit of a surprisingly bizarre story, realizing that in truth you actually have to pay real close attention to understand what?s happening. A corrupt cop (Rosie Perez) teams up with a rich badass (Gary Cole), who is in a drug-war with the Asians, and now because of Dale observing a murder by the female cop and top drug dealer, he has endangered him and Saul, and Saul?s pot dealer of course, played by Danny McBride.

Blending action and comedy has always been a rigid craze to handle, and truthfully, it?s not handled too well. On the upside, the comedy is top-notch. Seth Rogen does a great job of what he does best, and James Franco gives a pleasingly hilarious performance. Fans of Rogen and Apatow will not be disappointed, and newcomers to this kind of series will find most of it bearable. However, the intolerable scenes are three quarters of the fight scenes, which are yanked on for way too long, and the absolute last scene where the three are sitting around is honestly painful. Sure, some of that fraction is funny, but is it really needed? Especially for so long? The point is, people are going to see this movie to laugh, not to see a gun-slinging farce, which is executed poorly.

Pineapple Express is packed with humor, there?s no question about it. It is absolutely hilarious, but it feels something is missing that was in such classics as Knocked Up and Superbad. And that emptiness decides that we don?t care about these characters. I didn?t feel the connection as I did with Ben in Knocked Up or the three entertaining teens from Superbad. Mainly because, I don?t care about the story. It started off as a good idea, and escalated downwards reason being it became too overwhelmed with itself in which it wound up losing control and getting out of hand. Ultimately, the movie is funny enough for honorable mention, but I just wish it was so much more. B-.