Pineapple Express (2008)

These are the cats that brought you Superbad, the poster declares, and, with much of the same cast and exactly the same sense of humor, it's not hard to believe. It's also not hard to have a great time with a movie that couldn't take itself less seriously.

I'm an unabashed fan of these Judd Apatow "Frat Pack" comedies (You Don't Mess with the Zohan aside, which I couldn't even finish), but something about the premise brought a skeptical Cinema King to the sofa for the DVD run of this one. Seth Rogen plays Dale Denton, a stoner who witnesses a murder and runs to his dealer, played in top form by James Franco, to hide out. The pair end up fleeing into the woods to avoid Ted Jones (Gary Cole, the father of film's Brady Bunch and Ricky Bobby) and his feuding henchmen (Kevin Corrigan [Cousin Sean from The Departed] and Craig Robinson [Darrell from The Office]). Meanwhile, Dale tries to save his relationship with his high school girlfriend (literally, she's 18), played by Amber Heard, though this subplot fades in and out with only a hilarious appearance by Ed Begley, Jr., as Heard's father, to redeem it.

This is another in a famously uncomplicated line of comedies from Apatow & Co., but it's one of the funniest - perhaps even more so than Superbad, which I loved. Pineapple Express takes everything I loved about Superbad - silly characters, rapid-fire dialogue, and a race to... somewhere (Franco says something along the lines of the splendid line, "I wish we could run away to... nowhere.") - and adds things Superbad didn't have, like the inimtable rising star Danny McBride and plenty of gunfights & explosions. If there's one thing I can never have too much of, it's explosions.

I praised the dialogue earlier, similar praise being offered for Rogen and Evan Goldberg's previous screenplay (Superbad, for those not paying attention), especially because this movie really finds its niche in the kind of dialogue that's becoming popular these days - quick, hysterical, and occasionally mumbling. Rogen and Granco in particular do a masterful job of handling their lines, in which their characters frequently find themselves digging themselves into a verbal hole, often ending their scenes with self-conscious reflections like "That was too far" or "I shouldn't have said that, that was mean." It's also a credit to director David Gordon Green that he knows when to cut the scenes and how best to pace them so the laughs keep coming.

There's not a whole lot more to say about Pineapple Express except that it's a lot of fun. There's no heavy message - except maybe something about the nature of friendship (platonic friendship between males being a central tenet of Apatow flicks) - so it's really about having a good time. The movie won't appeal to everyone, of course; there's bound to be accusations of it being a "stupid" movie or condemnations for its drug culture backdrop. But for those who have enjoyed the Apatow train thus far, Pineapple Express might prove addicting.

The MPAA rated Pineapple Express "R for pervasive language, drug use, sexual references and violence." The violence is exceptionally cartoonish and only occasionally bloody, and the sexual references aren't as explicit as they have been in the past. Drug use, though, is all over the film, as is crass language some might not care for.