This Is 40 (2012)

I always hate when I set my expectations for a movie and my expectations wind up getting crushed. I adore Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. I loved them both to no end in Knocked Up so I was very excited to see them and their characters get their own movie in This is 40. I am fifteen years away from being forty (god that sounds awful!) and I hope and pray during these fifteen years I will have my shit together unlike Debbie and Pete. I found This is 40 to be funny at some parts and most of the time I could not believe how outrageously dysfunctional and annoying they were.

            The movie takes place eight years after Knocked Up (**it’s been eight years already?! It feels like I just saw that in theaters yesterday. I was seventeen!!**). Pete is still working in the music business but now he has his own record company that is not doing very well. Debbie has her own shop that is losing money because of one of the employees stealing money. They are having issues with their oldest daughter Sadie who is now fourteen and going through some changes and hates everyone. Debbie and Pete are dealing with their own paternal issues which did not need to be in the movie at all.

            In the beginning all is somewhat well and then towards the middle to the end things get too heavy. The movie goes from being a comedy in the first ninety minutes to an annoying drama until the end. There are some hysterical moments after the first ninety minutes but they are infrequent.

            What I did not like at all is how I liked the characters of Debbie and Pete at the beginning and by the end I could not stand them. I know that sometimes people just do not grow up and are immature. I know that relationships can be dysfunctional. When the immaturity and the dysfunction mix my god I cannot think of anything more annoying. I felt terrible for their kids. I would die if Debbie and Pete were my parents. I think by now you have guessed my age. I am my age and still living at home (damn stupid economy and my degree). If my parents acted like Debbie and Pete I would have been out of the house long ago. Judd Apatow wrote and directed the movie based off of his life with Leslie Mann and their daughters (who play the daughters in this movie). Seriously if this is what their home life is like one, how are they still together and two, I hope someone helps their daughters out.

            Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd were awesome I have no complaints about their acting. I hope Mann and Rudd make another movie together I like their chemistry. The bit characters were annoying and unnecessary. There is a story line about Pete’s dad that was annoying to no end and did not need to be shown. Megan Fox was actually not that bad her character was part of the unnecessaries but she was good. Melissa McCarthy is in two scenes and she steals the whole thing. The woman is so damn funny that I was crying laughing with her scenes.

            I unfortunately had some expectations for This is 40 and they were shit on. The movie is an hour way too long that by the end it felt like Apatow was rushing to get to a happy ending that was not very happy to watch. I was expecting something better from Apatow but it seems that his movies are getting worse and worse. This is 40 is worth seeing once because as I said there are some really hysterical moments in it and Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are great together. One viewing is plenty enough.