Pineapple Express Movie
Two and a half stars
How could someone mess up this idea? Answer: to much pot humor, not enough Hot Fuzz . Pineapple Express was allegedly supposed to be the frat pack’s and Judd Apatow’s crew’s humorous interpretation of action films. Instead, it was a stoner film with a few schizophrenic breaks into poor action humor.
Pot humor is funny; however, there is so much ground that can be covered. It is relatively easy to make a pot joke. The smokers’ mental capacity is already diminished because they are high, so naturally they are going to act goofy. That is basically the pot joke, which was basically the movie. James Franco’s portrayal of a stereotypical pot head was well done, and after seeing him in Spider Man I doubted his acting ability. Pineapple Express was his movie, but since pot humor is simple and limited, and he was a pot head, even his material was overused by the end of the film.
Unlike pot humor, making a comedic homage to action films is more difficult, and Pineapple Express did not rise to the challenge. The action sequences were ridiculous enough to be unrealistic but they were not extreme enough to be unbelievably hilarious. Personally, I was expecting something more like Hot Fuzz, which masters the humorous honoring of action films like Point Break and Bad Boys II.
The reason that Pineapple Express gets three and a half stars is because I just saw Step Brothers and there is no way this was as bad as Step Brothers. Pineapple Express definitely had more funny moments. My favorite part was the ending of the film where James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Danny McBride are sitting around a table talking about their adventures. It reminded me of Boy Scouts where I and other members of the troop would sit around and talk about what we did that day, a movie we saw, or a game we played. It was not like we sat down and asked, “So what did you do today?” like a married couple going through the motions. It was more like, “Guys, you should have seen what John did today on the ropes course. It was hilarious,” or “Okay, so I was about the grab the other team’s flag, then all of the sudden Jack pops up from the tall grass like he’s a marine sniper or something.” I like that kind of setting and dialogue because it shows people enjoying what they did, and not being ashamed to talk about how much fun they had.
- Dream
I dream of you and me, inside a pond. We had learned to breathe underwater as we stood together in the bottom. It was blue, moist and chilly as water touched and caressed our skins. - Politicians
First, I want to make it clear I am not singling out Obama supporters. Nonsense like this happens for all sorts of political elections throughout history and across the globe.
