Pineapple Express (2008) Reviews

• James Franco Is The Real Thing

  littlemartinarocena2008-09-24

  I laughed more in this movie than in any other of its ilk. Mostly thanks to James Franco. Yes, the James Dean Franco. His comedic timing is startling and his sympathy is all consuming. I think the secret is that we can (Franco allows us) see the human being behind this irresistible caricature. I was totally taken by the strange kind of innocence he exudes. We sense a loyal buddy who is capable of extraordinary generosity. His smile is already an iconic movie landmark. Seth Rogen is also very funny but you can guess that this is actually his character. Nothing wrong with that but James Franco's range is infinite. David Gordon Green makes his "commercial debut" very successfully. The showdown at the end takes a bit too long but all in all this movie is throughly worth it.

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• Older Viewer

  beepboopbeep2008-08-07

  I was not interested in seeing this movie as I thought it would be a stupid teen story. My daughter went with her older cousins, she is only 16 and since the theater had strict security I was forced to go in as her guardian. I am 46 years old and I laughed the whole entire movie. By the end I was laughing SO hard that I could not take it anymore. I think I laughed more than the kids. There were so many laugh out loud scenes and the interaction between the characters was pure gold.It really took me back to my younger days-so for you older people this is really one movie you do not want to miss. Be sure to go to the bathroom before because this is definitely one of those pee in your pants movies.

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• Vibrant, hilarious mesh of genres, and a different sort of film for David Gordon Green

  ametaphysicalshark2008-08-06

  There will be many who will dismiss "Pineapple Express" as immature, overly silly, disjointed, and scatter-shot. There will be others who recognize it as a bizarrely artful, playful, loose genre-bending comedy with some outstanding performances, an inspired comedy script, and some great work from director David Gordon Green, certainly one of the finest young directors around. The latter group is correct. "Pineapple Express" is, as a whole, the best movie the Apatow clan has produced yet. David Gordon Green is unquestionably the best director to direct one of these movies, but this is also a very different sort of movie than the films he usually directs. Does he rise to the challenge? He certainly does. I never would have believed that he was capable of directing such exciting and fun action scenes, or keep the movie's tone steady despite the different elements it consists of being so wildly disparate, but somehow he pulls it off. No other stoner movie can claim to be as artful and well-directed as this film. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's much-anticipated follow-up to "Superbad" is an excellent screenplay, but expect none of the realism and resonance of that film; "Pineapple Express" is all about the laughs, and the laughs are certainly here, and they are practically non-stop, with just about every scene featuring some great dialogue, acting, or the sort of incredible sight gag this movie does so well. This is just great comedy throughout. In addition to David Gordon Green's excellent work as director, the film is technically superb. The soundtrack and use of music is brilliant, and frequent Gordon Green collaborator Tim Orr's cinematography is consistently great. "Pineapple Express" will be an inherently divisive film. It didn't get the sort of critical accolades many previous Apatow clan movies did, and I expect audiences will also be a little less unanimous. Indeed, there's little of the critic-pleasing dramatic scenes Apatow's comedies have been praised for, and even when they do pop up they're usually deflated instantly with a joke, and credit has to go to director David Gordon Green for his expert handling of the film's tone, which never becomes schmaltzy, thank the heavens. Really, the whole film is throughly enjoyable except for the very last scene in the film, which contains one of the film's best jokes, but is really hard to buy given the state the characters are in, and also more than a little forced. Aside from that moment the whole thing works beautifully, quite astounding given the mesh of many different genres and sorts of comedy that this is. You either go with this movies sense of humor or you don't, and I imagine more people will enjoy the first three quarters of the movie, before the big, long action scene happens, and lots and lots of violence occurs. I guess you have to have a somewhat morbid sense of humor to laugh at ALL of the jokes in the film, but so what? There are also some nice little tongue-in-cheek references to the film's influences ("they messed with the wrong melon farmers"). The cast really give it their all. It was great to see James Franco back in a comedic role, and his performance steals the show. Rogen is good as usual, Gary Cole is a perfect villain, and it's nice to see the gorgeous and talented Amber Heard finally make a quality film (and get one of the film's funniest scenes as her character's final scene). The supporting cast are also all good in their roles. There are a lot of reasons why "Pineapple Express" won't work for many people, and they will probably end up being the very reasons the film works for those who like it. The film's plot is inherently silly to an extent (although this is nowhere near the "Anchorman" style of comedy), and one must be prepared for an outright comedy and not something in the vein of "Knocked Up". "Pineapple Express" may end up being more enjoyable for stoners and those with friends who are stoners, but it works on its own as great comedy because the humor has much more range and scope than just marijuana. One of the best comedies in years. 9/10

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• Derails in the second half

  pauljraab2008-09-02

  This started out as funny & clever and completely fell apart in the second half of the movie. For the first half, I'd give it close to an 8 and for the second a zero, so we'll average out at a solid 4. The second half ceased to be funny or clever and turned into one long, idiotic cliché. Honestly, it really felt like we lost our original set of writers & directors after an hour and they had to find a replacement set from some cheesy action movie. It totally came off the tracks when our light-hearted stoners picked up machine guns along with the rest of the thugs. Did the writers quit smoking weed and start doing meth or something? How could this have started so good and ended up such crap? I don't think I could be more disappointed after all the hype this movie has received.

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• I'd rather watch Beavis & Butthead!

  Turfseer2008-08-28

  Seth Rogen is the type of actor who simply plays himself. In "Knocked Up", there was a positive arc to the story where he plays a loser who must take on adult responsibilities and eventually grow up. In "Pineapple Express", he remains a loser and we can never believe in his journey since he's pitted against a bunch of unlikeable, unsavory comic book characters. Rogen plays Dale Denton, a process server, who witnesses a murder by a drug dealer and then must elude the drug dealer's hired killers who are out to get him. His buddy marijuana dealer, Saul Silver, joins him as they elude the hit men. Right away you see how dumb the movie is when Denton is able to witness a murder which occurs inside a house in full view of anyone walking on the street. Another ridiculous moment occurs when Saul's marijuana supplier is shot point blank in the stomach but manages to survive and then is strong enough to drive Denton to the drug dealer's lair. Of course those who wrote the movie undoubtedly will argue that the situations are supposed to be over the top and that's the humor of it. But there comes a point where there are so many scenes that are so ridiculous that one simply doesn't care about the characters anymore. Rogen and Franco do their Beavis and Butthead impersonations but their humor has no subtlety and relies mainly on slapstick to get by. There's a romantic subplot involving Denton's relationship with a girl who's a high school student but that fizzles completely especially at the end when the screenwriters forgot to tell us what happened between the two. While this is supposed to be a somewhat good-natured farce about two guys who share a mutual love for marijuana, there's a lot of unnecessary violence with drug dealers killing one another during the finale. The ending undercuts the more good-natured scenes between the film's two protagonists. If you check out the IMDb graph as to the age groups who liked this film, you will see that the older you are, you are less likely to like it. I feel certain that within five years, Seth Rogen will be a forgotten name within the movie industry unless he stops writing and acting in films such as this.

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