Knocked Up - review

Knocked Up (15)

Dir. Judd Apatow

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Hi my name’s Ben, I’m a chubby slacker with no prospects but I’m out for the night and through drink haze I meet you – a stunning blonde out celebrating your job promotion in a funky club… I really like you, there’s definite chemistry so perhaps we can see a bit more of each other? Who knows, one thing might lead to another and before anyone can say ‘be sure to take precautions’, we could be up to our eyeballs in nappies and baby grows… It does…
That sound funny to you?
It certainly is in Knocked Up, the irresponsible but consistently hilarious new comedy from the makers of The 40 Year Old Virgin. Somehow this manages to be full of laugh out loud situations and pack a sparkling comic script that mixes lewd stoner ‘blokes’ comedy with wry relationship observations. In fact Knocked Up is a surprisingly shrewd lifestyle commentary for our times, which encompasses the reality of responsibility, the nature of love and many of the heartfelt emotions that go with parenthood preparation.
So the question is: can life-long loser slob Ben (Seth Rogen) get his act together enough to be a suitable father for career minded babe Alison (Katherine Heigl) or are they doomed not to make it?
Many amusing trials stand between these two strange bedfellows living happily ever after - with their new soon to be offspring. Firstly there’s the small matter of Ben’s slacktastic housemates with who he is trying to set up a ‘celebrity nude scene’ website. These guys exist in a perpetual ‘frat house’ puerile atmosphere where smoking weed is considered a high art form and females are mostly only creatures seen in movies. Then there’s Alison’s sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) whose marriage to wisecracking Pete (Paul Rudd) is not really an advertisement for blissful family life. If you go to see this with a date, there’ll certainly be plenty to discuss on the way home.
What’s great is that Knocked Up doesn’t fall into the problem faced by many comedies where they take a funny set up and then by halfway through forget to keep delivering the laughs. It’s rude and juvenile to the end (which didn’t go down well with my wife) but I admired the conviction of the filmmakers in sticking to their guns.
And if Knocked Up sounds like your cup of tea, look out for Superbad in a few weeks which cold be this year’s American Pie style teen comedy – the bad taste laughs keep coming!

Out of 5 you have to go with a really funny 4 (safe sex is important but not as funny)...

Darkmatters ratings:

Action ööö – bedroom action ahoy!
Laughs ööööö – Ho ho and indeed ho Mother f****r
Horror öö – you might want to look away if squeamish during the graphic birth scene!
Babes öööö – Heirl is delicious!! (see below)

Overall öööö (very good!!)



"oooh, you would..."

Darkmatters: H O M E