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Created Mar 21, 2009 06:40PM PST • Edited Apr 11, 2024 02:01AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Bro-larious. 40% LOL, which is damn good, plenty sufficient and about all you can expect, really. The movie amusingly skewers many demographics: brides and grooms, marrieds and singles, slackers and young professionals, gays and straights, not to mention that ever self-indulgent cohort – LA assholes.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Id unleashed¹, Jason Segel’s Sydney Fife comes across as a mellow Tyler Durden, a refreshing change of pace from Peter Bretter, Segel’s put-upon shlemazel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Even his introduction to the picture is laid back, coming about a third of the way through when he appears at an open house to hit on the cougars and scarf the spread.²

   Atop the credits sits Paul Rudd’s Pistol Pete Klaven. Now a full fledged comic leading man, Rudd’s a bit goofy here but just as appealing as in 2006’s underrated I Could Never Be Your Woman. Good thing too: Occasionally more endearing than funny with his lame attempts at cool jargon, he falls back on his harmless charm to make more than one scene work.

   As successful comedies must, the cast is stocked with plenty of funny character actors: Jane Curtin and J.K. Simmons as self-centered parents, Jaime Pressly and John Favreau as a couple mismatched but for their abrasiveness, plus an always professional Andy Samberg, to name a few.

   Hell, even the Lou Ferrigno cameo worked, though did they have to end on his limp wrist?
   -—————————————-

   ¹ Freud defined the Id as the part of the personality structure focused on selfishness and instant self-gratification.

   ² Notice Segel doesn’t appear until a good half way down the full cast credits.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Like most current comedies, the movie has awkward – even painful – moments. But they give way to seriously funny bits that touch on outrageous yet recognizable situations. Plus the movie remains impressively committed to its buddy love conceit end-to-end. Structurally, the forced march of wedding and engagement events scaffolds one funny bit after another. Knowing what’s coming keys the audience to the possibilities of how each set piece will punch its joke.

    For instance, by the time the rehearsal dinner comes along, you just know Jason Segel’s gonna propose a toast, a roast, something. So it’s extra funny when he uses his subversive manner of speaking to instruct the bride in servicing her man. Then the second toast scene during the closing credits milks yet one more decent laugh from the same set-up.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    Kudos to John Hamburg and Larry Levin for crafting a killer funny screenplay, especially the raft of hipster dialog Jason Segel gets to spew. We should all be so cool and prescient. (Either really…)

13. Music Great 4.0

    I hate Rush: the Soprano Metal band, not the hard core radio entertainer (though I ain’t never been too fond of him either). There, I’ve said it. It’s less Rush’s music than their high pitched male singing and silly psychic lyrics that annoys the shit out of me. Still, more than a few of my buds over the years were Rush fanatics, so Neal Peart and the boys are kind of the perfect band for these two dudes to bromance over. Happily it all works in the movie: The two man Rush jam scenes are a hoot, then the concert with the actual band kicks ass, as does the impressive cast concert over the closing credits. Rock on.

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    It’s a badge of cinematic honor these days to have a hugely funny scatological gag scene. Man scores. Projectile vomiting rarely gets this funny, which is interesting because many undergrads consider it the height of comedy.

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    The movie would have us believe that health clubs and the rest of the world are full of straight-seeming gay guys hunting for hookups. My gaydar might be on the fritz, but this just don’t seem so. Of course, I’m NorCal. Maybe down in LA…

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0