So-so. It has all the trappings of an Apatow production, so even though Apatow wasn't involved with it, I will label it as such. Sean William Scott was actually surprisingly good relative to my expectations. Paul Rudd was, well, Paul Rudd.
For most of the movie, however, I kept trying to work out what separates the comedy of the Wilson/Ferrell/Stiller era from the Rogen/Carell/Hill films. And there is a striking difference, but I'n having a hard time pinpointing it. The comedy in Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is worlds apart from that found in Zoolander and Wedding Crashers. Part of it, I think, is that the former group's films start out with a ridiculous premise -- see Old School, Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch, Dodgeball -- and just use the pure fantasaical nature of the storyline to drive the comedy. Contrast this with Apatow films -- Superbad, Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin. While these plots aren't realistic, per se, they're certainly not on a level with a film that peeks into the trials and tribulations of an androgynous and half-retarded male model.*
So when Will Ferrell and Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughan start a fraternity, there's your humor. You don't need that many jokes if you've got that. Whereas when you have Jonah Hill and Michael Cera trying to impress some chicks in high school, you need a certain level of ridiculousness and wittiness to make up for the banality of the story. And so you have quirky characters like McLovin, who account for the comedic value lost in making a film about such an everyday occurrence. "Apatow humor" ends up being much more subdued and, thus, rewarding, than Stiller-brand jokes. I still laugh my ass off at Dodgeball, but it's even more gratifying when you have to think for two seconds before erupting into a fit of happy convulsions at Paul Rudd greeting Seth Rogen with "How are things at Buttfuckingham Palace?" It's not exactly deep humor, but it's the kind that makes you think "Man, wish I'd have written that."
*I suppose I have to forget Pineapple Express exists in order to make this argument.
