Pineapple Express - Rogen/Apatow's weakest work so far (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Well, what can I say. I thought this film was the weakest offering yet from the Apatow/Rogen/Goldberg crew.

If anything, it reminded me how goddamn annoying potheads are.

Weed is a plant. It gets you high. You get high, and you enjoy stuff more. Music sounds better, food tastes better. But weed is not a fucking lifestyle! The people who make a lifestyle out of weed are the most uninteresting people in the universe. And these are the people that this movie is about.

Rogen and Apatow have, in the past, with movies like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, given us, commendably, characters who smoked weed but were more than just stoners - characters that were multi-dimensional, realistic guys who happened to smoke weed, but for whom weed was not the only thing in their lives. Well, this concept is completely shot to hell with Pineapple Express. The characters’ incoherent stoner babbling and falling all over the place gets really old really fast. After a while, it just becomes annoying to watch them.

There was also:

A romantic sub-plot that went absolutely nowhere (maybe this was the intention - but the result was not funny, at least not in my opinion.)

A completely wasted turn by the great actor Gary Cole, who was totally under-used in this movie.

A bunch of really over-the-top violence that felt completely forced.

And on top of all of that, the main characters all looked so damn…gross. They were grimy and dirty throughout the whole movie. What can I say, I found it unpleasant to have to look at a bunch of really dirty guys and their slovenly apartments for the whole duration of the movie.

I don’t know, I really expected this to be a better and more nuanced movie. Some of the jokes were funny - “You’ll go to college and get into Godspeed You Black Emperor and The Shins!” - and a few others that I can’t remember (which says a lot.) I expected it to be a little bit…I don’t know…mature. Maybe this was a foolish expectation but that’s what I’ve come to expect from Apatow and Rogen - comedies that are kind of dumb and kind of gross, but also kind of intelligent and mature and realistic. This movie was all the former and none of the latter.

Any thoughts?

2

I can’t comment on the movie, because I haven’t seen it, and have no intention of ever seeing it.

The best thing about the trailers is the MIA song (Paper Planes)…which happens to be my least favourite song by her, and I turn it off half way through whenever I listen to Kala, or for some reason get the desire to listen to it. That really tells me something about the trailer, and thus, probably the movie.

Apparently, my instincts were right.

3

How many stoners are you friends with? Because the OP makes it sound (unsurprisingly) like they nailed it.

4

I really liked it. Not the best movie of the year, but well worth the money in my opinion. I say this as someone who likes Rogen, Franco, and Apatow, loves action movies, and has never smoked pot in her life. I thought it was funny, had good acting, good directing, and just was all around fun.

My favorite thing was that it was these loser potheads who got caught up in fights and car chases and such, and it was obvious that they’d never had to do anything like that before. I laughed out loud several times in the movie, but during the car chase I was laughing so much it hurt a little.

In my opinion, if you like action comedies and don’t mind profanity and drug use, I would recommend the movie.

5

I saw the sneak peek for this movie on the Superbad DVD, and wow, did it look bad. It seemed so strange: how could the guys who did Freaks and Geeks and The 40-Year-Old Virgin make something that looks so unentertaining and unfunny? I wondered if maybe I was wrong–maybe I would give it a chance, maybe there would be more to this movie than a couple of lame stoners talking about weed…but now there’s no way I’m going near it. Thanks for the heads-up.

6

I saw it and thought it was hilarious. Franco was perfect as the stoner pot dealer, and Rogan was fun as well. Yes, they are dirty. But, thats from stuff that happens in the story and it is commented on plenty of times by other people in the movie. It’s not high art, but it has a ton of laughs and a interesting twisty story. I think they could have cut out some of the violence and action without losing much, but I am not going to say it ruined the movie.

7

Anyone else think that the whole thing was going to end up being a “pipe dream”? That would have made the increasingly over-the-top violence make more sense. I wonder if they shot multiple endings?

8

As huge Freaks & Geeks fans, Mr. S and I were sad to be disappointed by Knocked Up (the first Apatow film we’ve seen). It was as if because the content limitations of network TV had been lifted, they quit being thoughtful and just went for the potty humor. We enjoy vulgar humor if it’s you know, funny. But Knocked Up, for us, largely wasn’t.

I suppose we’ll check out 40-Year-Old Virgin to give it another chance, but quite frankly, Pineapple Express looks like more of the same.

9

40 Year Old Virgin is the best of the Apatow movies, no question. It’s much more mature than any of the other ones, and all of the characters are extremely likable and multi-dimensional. Definitely don’t write it off just because you didn’t like Knocked Up. I liked Knocked Up alright but it was no 40YOV.

10

Yeah I agree. I was hesitant to see 40 Year Old Virgin myself and once I saw it I thought it was the best movie of that year. I was also reluctant to see Superbad and Knocked Up (I dunno why) but they both turned out to be better than I thought. But 40 Year Old Virgin was definitely the cream of the crop.

11

Haven’t read the OP–spoilerphobic–but while I’m way tired of Apotowisms, I’m a HUGE fan of David Gordon Green, and my breath is pretty dang bated over this.

12

The entire Rogen-Apatow movie franchise is on its way down, at least in terms of quality. The popularity will follow soon enough. Sure, they’re going to be able to pump out at least another handful of movies, but the quality is going to continue to taper off, the public will get fed up with the over saturation of the “stars” and eventually they’ll go away. At least until they enjoy a brief resurgence with a strong come back movie, only to eventually fall to the obscurity of cable TV.

13

Definitely agreed. Forgetting Sarah Marshall sucked bobcat cock. Whatever comes after this will probably suck eagle cock. They’re losing their touch, big time. Their movies need more Paul Rudd and Steve Carell and less Rogen (and is it my imagination or does he keep getting schlubbier and chubbier with every movie? Christ, he looked OK in 40YOV and if he worked out a little to the point where he was merely burly and not flabby, he’d be a right handsome dude, but in Pineapple Express he really looked terrible.)

14

I do want to see this movie, but I think the days of 40YOV are long gone now. Superbad was good, Knocked Up was a bit better, and I haven’t seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I’m not one for stoner movies in general, but I did like Dude Where’s My Car? and the Harold and Kumar movies (though I thought the second was a bit weaker than the first except for the cockmeat sandwich part, and the bottomless party, oh and the bag of weed threesome).

15

shrug Forty Year Old Virgin was weaker than both Knocked Up and Superbad (although all three of them have tons of heart), and I liked Pineapple Express. Your mileage obviously varies.

16

I’m with you, Gadarene, although I suppose in my case it might have to do with the fact that I saw 40-Year-Old Virgin on DVD and saw the others in the theater. Some comedies work better for me when there are more people laughing along with me. In particular, two of the friends I saw Superbad with had had a bit too much to drink with dinner, so a lot of the humor was laughing at how disproportionately funny they found it.

Anyway, Pinapple Express had its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments for me. In comparison to the other Apatow movies, it relied more on slapstick stoner antics and comically exaggerated violence, so I could see how it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But I thought the slapstick was well done (the “kicking out the windshield” scene for instance), and the fight at the middle-man drug dealer’s house was one of the better comedic fight scenes I’ve seen recently.

There were some truly funny lines, too. I cracked up at the bit about how the one guy made himself more “aerodynamic”.

17

Anyone?

18

I did expect that as a cop-out ending. The diner scene at the end, when it was obvious they weren’t going to go that way, instead having a reflective “holy shit, we just did all that,” had me laughing the entire time, just from the situation itself.

I enjoyed the movie for what it was: a completely over-the-top parody of 80s action movies. Right down to Huey Lewis singing its theme song.

19

Was that supposed to be an homage to Pulp Fiction? That’s the impression I got.

20

Yeah. I had the exact same thought as they took the many guns out. The idea made a lot of sense when they showed Dale Denton making that slow mo leap. But, I did like them wrapping up the story by talking about everything they did. That’s such a fun thing to do, stoner or not. Sit around eating greasy foods and talk about the adventure you just had.