Electric Dreamstate

The summer movie season is almost upon us, and once again I return to this blog. Let’s start out with a nice point form review of last weekend’s Judd Apatow Brand™ comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The Plot:
Peter Bretter (Jason Segal) is a music composer on the CSI-esque show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime and dating one of the stars of the show Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). She dumps him and he goes on vacation to forget her … only she’s at the same resort as him with her new boyfriend.

Good:
• Some hilarious moments, many related to full-frontal male nudity.
• Did a good job making the sentimental scenes have jokes in them, and remain funny.
• All of the leads acquitted themselves well. Surprisingly Mila Kunis was probably the stand-out, having finally outgrown her Jackie character from That 70s Show.
• Stays funny throughout, despite being a bit long.

Bad:
• Unfortunately the plot focuses on several sitcom like contrivances (the fact that they’re at the same resort, they have rooms next to each other, ect).
• It is a little bit long.
• Although it fulfills the Apatow formula fairly well (R-rated jokes, characters with depth, kind-of more sincere than you expect), it has become a formula at this point and isn’t as surprising.

Overall:
The film is hilarious, but will be just as worth while on video.