Shawn's Pineapple Express Review

2008 Movie #85 - Pineapple Express

Any movie which features a theme song performed by Huey Lewis and the News is pretty much instant win in my book. If they had done a theme song for Meet the Spartans, I would have had to give the movie at least 3 stars, I wouldn’t have had a choice, they’re just too awesome. Therefore when I heard they performed the main song for Pineapple Express, I knew I was in for something special.

I’ve been excited for this movie for almost a year since I started anticipating it way back when Superbad came out and Seth Rogen said this was going to be their next movie. I really liked the idea of a weed action comedy so I was on board right from the very beginning. In the end it certainly didn’t disappoint, but I’ll have to watch it at least one more time before I decide if it’s up there with Superbad and Knocked Up.

It’s a pretty different movie than those ones though. The humour is very much the same, but of course this one has the action elements factor in. These sequences are still damn funny though, in fact I thought they were some of the funniest parts in the movie. They’re similar to Get Smart in that they are a lot better than you would ever expect them to be. Some of the fight scenes are downright brutal and the shootout at the end is actually pretty badass. I never thought the action half of the movie would be handled this well so this was a very pleasant surprise.

I found with this movie there wasn’t as many huge laughs are there were with Superbad or Knocked Up (although they are quite a few, don’t get me wrong) but there are a lot of smaller laughs scattered throughout the movie. No scene was really fall down hilarious for me, but hardly much time would go by without some laughs. I wouldn’t go as far as to say the humour is subtle because it’s anything but subtle. I don’t know, you’ll see what I mean. Still this movie brings the funny, with a vengeance.

The cast is of course fantastic. Seth Rogen is very funny as usual but it’s James Franco who steals the show. Who would ever have thought that this guy was such a funny motherfucker? I mean if you watch movies like Annapolis and Flyboys, you really don’t think much of the guy. He shows a completely different side in this movie and I really hope this is the road he continues to go down because he is seriously really funny. Danny McBride also has a lot of the funnier moments in the movie, especially in the final act. A moment with him, a foot and a shotgun probably gave me the biggest laugh of the movie and still makes me laugh just thinking back to that moment.

What a great summer it has been, despite a few bumps in the road here and there. We still have Tropic Thunder to look forward to as well, however things get pretty bleak once that’s done. This is another one to add to the list of summer time movie awesomeness. *drop kick to the face*

SIDE NOTE: I just heard a guy on the radio who was offended by this movie because it had action in it and was horrified they thought we would laugh at “such horrific events.” In case you were wondering, yes this guy is everything that is wrong with the world. He then went on to claim Pineapple Express will never beat Dark Knight this weekend and won’t make more than 20 million, something it has already done as of Friday night. So fuck you “local movie expert” (yes that’s why they call him) because if you cant check that simple fact, you’re no expert. Your so called movie knowledge level is just above knowing movies exist.

**** / 5