Funny People

So they say Judd Apatow is growing up, taking a step away from his goofy comedies, mainly "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up." I never finished the 40 Year Old Virgin but I did see Knocked up. I actually thought Knocked Up was wittier and smarter than Funny People. It had more heart. Funny People is simply darker, and it has too many wiener jokes to say that he's taking a step in a completely different direction.

It is funny though. Enough to recommend seeing it in the theaters. It's engaging and Adam Sandler, as George Simmons, plays an interesting character: an uber famous comedian, that's let stardom get to his head in every way, and he just happens to be dying from a rare blood disease. So he's obviously got a lot going on at once. He's trying an experimental treatment as a last resort. The treatment has "positive results" in 8% of patients. Will he be one of the lucky ones?

Sandler can be a pretty good actor when he tries. He pulls the part off well. Seth Rogan comes in as a nobody comedian, who just happens to catch Simmons at the right place at the right time, doing just the right bit. Simmons takes Rogan in as a joke writer for him. Rogan gains confidence as a comedian, and really comes along well as a character.

The movie runs almost 2 1/2 hours. Extremely long for a comedy, but Apatow tries to do a lot with more character development and extra story lines than he's done in the past. It feels like it should be longer than the standard 1 1/2 hour romp, but somewhere in the middle would have been perfect. There just seems to be a half hour of fat that could have been trimmed. I didn't particularly find the relationship with Simmon's first love to be all that engaging, and that's mainly where I think it runs long.

But it's worth a watch. A lot of people gave it stellar reviews, some thought it was a poor effort. It made me laugh, it worked in general. Not a homerun, not a strike out, but more like a ground rule double. (That analogy is for my friend Mike, who would appreciate a baseball reference.)

My Score: 70
Metacritic: 60