ViewGuide

Created Aug 10, 2008 06:03PM PST • Edited Jul 26, 2015 01:27PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Like the effects of the mellow drug it celebrates, Pineapple Express gyrates between intense absurdity and sweet geniality, with frequent bouts of hilarity thrown in. Ace comedy writers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Judd Apatow have crafted another LOLer here, though not one as consistently sidesplitting as Superbad, their teen dream masterpiece.

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

   Seth Rogen delivers his trademark shlumpy comedic brilliance. Buddying him up with James Franco – such a tightass in Spider-Man yet a pleasant revelation here as a shaggy weed dealer – creates a genially effective comedy team at the center of the movie.

   Bill Hader, overseen by an eye-patched James Remar, unspools a hilarious opening cameo as a 1930’s soldier who learns of pot’s absurdest affects in especially unmellow circumstances.

   The rest of the cast is just OK. Gary Cole and his hitmen hardly intimidate. Rosie Perez’s crooked cop lacks sex appeal, humor or dread. How’s that happen?

   Amber Heard fills out the young hottie role in barely memorable fashion. Her ’rents, well played by comedy stalwarts Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn, are reliably funny.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Barely OK 2.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Pineapple Express hangs with other recent comedies that deliver fast-paced raunch in such brutally funny fashion that you’re wondering what you just heard even as you’re laughing your ass off. While not as consistent as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, or Juno, PE nonetheless delivers plenty of LOLs. From a big picture POV, PE adds another layer of burnish on what has turned out to be a comedic golden era.

    Now to its rank in the hierarchy of pot movies. While the evil weed features in lots of flicks, you’d have to go back to Cheech & Chong’s Up In Smoke to find a story where cannabis looms larger. In that light, PE’s Cross Joint, God’s Vagina, and Army test scene place it nice and high on the list.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

    David Gordon Green does a credible job, albeit the car chase, shoot-em-up parts are a bit second rate.

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Plenty of LOL moments.

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

    Surprisingly weak for a stoner movie. Was that Huey Lewis over the closing credits? Lame.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

    PE adds more than a little violence to the usual raunchy dialog of Apatow comedies.

17. Sex Innocent 1.4

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

    Two bogosities stand out on the Reality front: The stoners are amazingly casual about partaking in all manner of public settings, and they function amazingly well given the purported power of Pineapple Express.

    As with all Apatow productions, the movie’s worldview remains stuck in arrested adolescence. Not that there’s anything wrong with that given how funny it is.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.8

23. Biological Glib 2.0

24. Physical Glib 1.3