This Is 40

2012 comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Pete and Debbie reach the titular age and deal with problems with finances, their sex lives, their parents, and their businesses.

What are people's opinions on Megan Fox? Does she have some degree of likability? I haven't seen a lot of Megan Fox movies--Transformers where I barely noticed her because it made my head hurt and Jonah Hex which I didn't like--but I almost always like when she's on the screen, and I know my wife has the hots for her. Is the consensus pretty much that she's hired for her shape? I like a lot of the talent in this. Apatow's wife (Leslie Mann) looks better than she sounds (didn't care for her voice) and has good chemistry with Paul Rudd. I always sort of like Rudd, despite the size of that chin of his. Apatow's daughters play their daughters. Albert Brooks and John Lithgow play the dads, the latter still looking a little confused from that Planet of the Apes thing. Apatow-regulars Segal and Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd are all funny in these, I'm guessing, largely-improvised scenes. Or at least they're based on improvisation. The humor does have a spontaneity to it that I like even though these comedians' streams-of-conscious too-often take them right to the scatological or genital to get laughs. Best of all might be Graham Parker playing himself, and I don't believe he makes a single dick joke. The problem with this movie is that there's way too much story. I like the relationship of the leads and their struggles to work through things even though things frequently got uncomfortable. But this movie's plot was the perfect storm of crappiness, and it was a lot to juggle, both for the storytellers and the audience. I guess that's why the movie had to be over two hours long, likely too long for a comedy like this. After a while, you're checking your watch as much as you're laughing. I really think about half of the subplots could have been dumped without making a difference, and that might be a clue that they're completely unnecessary. An editor was probably needed. That or somebody needed to finish the script. I was also a little annoyed at all the contemporary allusions, a thing I generally hate in movies because it pretty much ensures that people won't be interested in them in twenty or twenty-five years. I will say that my biggest laugh might have been the mention of John Goodman's name, however. This is funny enough and has a lot of recognizable situations for a nearly-40-year-old married guy like me to be worth watching, but it's unfortunately just way too long with far too many cheap laughs.