40-Year Old Virgin
I would like to take a moment to point out that this review, while prepared
for Monday, was placed on hold so that Lord Jezo could post pictures (and one
video) of grown men and women dressed as their favorite cartoon characters. I'm
not complaining. I just feel like a hack if I did not disclose that the
protagonist of the movie being reviewed is, apparently, running this website. If
you don't believe me, you should drop a comment below and I'm sure the man in
question would be more than happy to give you a guided tour of his extensive
collection of action figures.
Its hard to review a comedy. There is pressure to be funny as well as the
desire to allude to jokes made in the movie. But not only does that have the
problem of perhaps ruining some amazing and (especially in this film)
surprisingly astute jokes but making the review so hard for people who haven't
seen the film to navigate that they give up in frustration and just go watch the
last movie I told them not to. It also kind of sucks to review a good movie
because when you write a movie review you should always have as much fun writing
it as you didn't have seeing it. Meaning that the shittier the movie, the more
fun it is to write about how much it ruined my life. Besides which, this movie
is doing very well. No one needs to see my endorsement to go see it. But if you
have not seen this movie and you seriously read this webpage, you are missing
out.
As mentioned, this movie is about someone you know. Even if you don't know
the people that make this website, you know the dudes in this movie. You've
worked with them (hopefully you have moved on), you've been friends with them,
you dated them (again, move on) and you probably are them in some capacity. And
this isn't some lame generic Everyman lazy character development sort of film.
While most of the character development works because it is so intuitive to the
viewer the nuances and sheer scope of actual attention is practically unheard of
for these sorts of films. In fact, I probably know more about the guys in this
movie based on their wardrobe and diction than I do about half the people I work
with. Granted this could be seen as a failing on my part but I would much rather
view it as a strength of the writing.
This movie makes no pretensions at being much more than a Steve Carell
vehicle and much of its success is probably due to the fact that no one really
knew that vehicles could be made for Steve Carell. I doubt if this film could be
made with anyone else in the main character role and maintain the charm it has.
Despite being completely devoted to the idea that this man has to carry the
entire movie there doesn't seem to be a lot of attention paid to him. Every
scene does not revolve around him and because of this, the scenes that are
necessary for plot movement and peripheral character development do not come off
as simply obligations by the director to get us to The Big Payoff when our
Anti-hero stumbles in. The main character is not nearly as absurd as the premise
nor his situation suggests. Carell has created a character that is, in theory,
so strange that he must be played with immense rationale and he absolutely pulls
it off.
With the exception of a few glaringly stereotypical comedy moments such as a
Funny Bumbling Scene # 38: Paw at and Accidentally Dismantle a Doctor's
Anatomical Model and a slightly truncated ending the movie really does seem to
fill a void that has been missing in quite some time at the movie theater. It
seems that with the DVD slow-growth success of "Office Space" and the return of
"Family Guy" the Internet Geeks have finally decided exactly what they like in a
comedy and have reminded studios that they are more then willing to pay (often
repeatedly) to see themselves being mocked in a much more conspiratorial manner
than Hollywood realized. Its a solid comedy with a few weak moments and will
probably fall in the ranks of being a cult hit (without all that pesky Napoleon
Dynamite backlash.)
Four out of Five Stalker Patti Heads for being damn funny, for still amusing
me days after.
Posted by PatboyX
