"This is 40" sets as a "sort-of" sequel to the hit comedy "Knocked Up", only the depressed couple, portrayed respectively by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, from "Knocked Up", now have a movie of their own. The movie talks about their rocky marriage, living with their two daughters, and both of them are reaching the age of 40. They will realize that they are going to age, so they come up with resolutions to save their fallen marriage. Leslie Mann prefers to pretend that she's still at age 38, with great looks soon becoming to age, while Paul Rudd is a music executive just trying to have peace from his loud and crazy wife. Writer-director Judd Apatow tries to re-create way too much of his actual marriage life in this movie, with his actual wife Leslie Mann playing the mom, their actual daughters playing the girls, and Paul Rudd taking place as Judd Apatow, in some sort of way. Sadly, right when Mann and Rudd have their first argument with each other, I knew at that moment, that the movie has arrived with a giant and disappointing "thump"! The movie, in it's entirety, can be really funny, and incredibly honest. A few one-liners, and a couple of fun moments still keep interesting long enough. But, the problem is this movie is overall a painful and uncomfortable experience that gets way too annoying and repetitive. I'm a fan of these two actors, but it gets way too unpleasant when the whole movie is just Rudd and Mann screaming at each other. The scenes when the family screams at each other seems incredibly over-the-top, and it is repeated way too much to a certain minimum. But, in the scenes when screaming is not required, these two actors share quite a cute chemistry, for the most part. We also get a mother-load of pointless cameos from tons of talented people. Jason Segel, Melissa McCarthy, Chris O'Dowd, and tons of other famous people, although were fine in their limited roles, it's the characters themselves that I felt had no reason to be in the film, but become cameos just for the sake of making a cameo. Megan Fox is both funny and sexy...but mostly sexy...as Mann's co-worker, Albert Brooks is a talented actor, but he overacts it a little playing Rudd's father, while John Lithgow is way too strange playing Mann's long-lost father. The running time for this movie is 134 minutes, and it definitely shows. This film is probably slower than the entire middle act of "The Five-Year Engagement". All we got filling in this running time are some scenes that feel very drawn out and didn't need to be discussed in the story, so nothing really fits together. If the movie would have been cut at least than 40 minutes, and if it wasn't slow or uncomfortable to watch, maybe we would have a great comedy. But, that's gonna have to wait! "This is 40", in my review, "a painfully unpleasant and unsatisfying train-wreck".
Review of This Is 40
