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Title: Paksuna (2007)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Seth Rogen | ... | Ben Stone | |
| Katherine Heigl | ... | Alison Scott | |
| Paul Rudd | ... | Pete | |
| Leslie Mann | ... | Debbie | |
| Jason Segel | ... | Jason | |
| Jay Baruchel | ... | Jay | |
| Jonah Hill | ... | Jonah | |
| Martin Starr | ... | Martin | |
| Charlyne Yi | ... | Jodi | |
| Iris Apatow | ... | Charlotte | |
| Maude Apatow | ... | Sadie | |
| Joanna Kerns | ... | Alison's Mom | |
| Harold Ramis | ... | Ben's Dad | |
| Alan Tudyk | ... | Jack | |
| Kristen Wiig | ... | Jill | |
When Alison Scott is promoted in E! Television, she goes to a night-club to celebrate with her older married sister Debbie. Alison meets the pothead reckless Ben Stone and while having a small talk with Ben, Debbie's husband Pete calls her to tell that their daughter has chicken pox. Debbie leaves the place but Allison stays with Ben, drinking and dancing along all night; completely wasted, they end up having a one night stand. Ben does not use a condom and eight weeks later, Allison discovers that she is pregnant. She calls Ben and they decide to try to stay together and have the baby. However, Ben needs to grow up first to raise a family of his own. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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I went into the theater not knowing what to expect, not having seen the trailer, and two hours later I felt I had seen a decent movie, quite funny at times, but I couldn't figure out what everyone was making such a big deal about. Compared to a lot of what passes for comedy in the cinema these days, Knocked Up is great, but it's hardly the "instant classic" that I've seen it called in many professional and IMDb reviews. It's certainly worth seeing, but maybe at a discount matinée instead of a full-price evening show.
Much of what is wrong with Knocked Up is simply an over-reliance on Seth Rogen to deliver the laughs. To be sure, Rogen is a funny guy - he handled the jump from second-tier supporting actor (a la 40 Year Old Virgin) to leading man surprisingly well, appearing confident and charismatic. The problem is that as the film goes on, he just doesn't get a whole lot to work with from his supporting cast. Rogen doesn't have enough in him at this point to carry an entire film on his shoulders, but often he is forced into that role, providing the only humor in many scenes (especially in the second half of the movie). At times it almost seems as if Rogen has landed in the wrong film, delivering clever quips and laughs while the barely-likable characters around him remain too serious. Paul Rudd manages to break this up, taking some of the burden off Rogen, but Katherine Heigl and Leslie Mann's unfunny and quasi-sympathetic characters drag them down.
To be sure, the first half of Knocked Up is great, but by the second half the script becomes mired in slow, cliché drama. Marital dissatisfaction and the loss of youth are interesting themes to explore, but in doing so, Knocked Up fails to establish a consistent tone. As the film trudges past the 90-minute mark, it is sometimes humorous, sometimes dour, often clichéd, all resulting in an awkward mix of styles.
Overall, Knocked Up was a good effort, but a little more editing of the script would have helped a lot. I don't mind long movies at all, but 20 minutes could have been trimmed from this film to good effect.