Pineapple Express, round 1.

Pineapple Express "just may be the Casablanca of Pot Comedies," proposes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical. "Or perhaps it's more like When Ultra-High Harry Met Super-Stoned Sally, but either way Pineapple Express showcases some of the funniest 'weed culture' insights since the arrival of Richard Linklater's fantastic Dazed & Confused - which I wouldn't call a full-bore 'pot comedy,' but it sure isn't shy about passing those joints around. Best of all, while Pineapple Express will absolutely appeal to both the casual and committed pot-smokers, it's also just a very funny buddy comedy / action flick parody that comes bearing the very unique stamp of director David Gordon Green."

Updated through 8/5.

This "inspired Seth Rogen / Evan Goldberg / James Franco / David Gordon Green / Judd Apatow collaboration will score big time," predicts Variety's Anne Thompson. "'I always thought Superbad would get made,' said Rogen at the Pineapple Express panel [at Comic-Con]. 'But this I never expected to get made. When I watch this stuff I am amazed.' Besides the fact that both Rogen and Franco are growing into leading man status, the revelation in the film is the third leg of the stoner trio, Danny McBride."

"Putting a violent spin on the Superbad formula (envelope-pushing raunch plus unexpectedly sweet affirmations of male friendship), Pineapple Express emerges as a fitfully funny, tonally trippy but not entirely satisfying effort from the Judd Apatow comic fraternity," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "This is certainly one of the better-looking efforts to come off the Apatow assembly line, composed in crisp widescreen images by DP Tim Orr, whose poetic lensing in Green's previous films helped earn the director comparisons to Terrence Malick. But production values are somewhat beside the point when the movie in question is more Harold & Kumar than Badlands."

"Green's feel for heightened naturalism gives the comedy an unexpected sheen (even the slapstick looks real) and the male bonding that develops between Dale, Saul and Red gives the film that characteristic Apatow sweetness," writes John Hazelton in Screen.

In the New York Times, Mark Harris profiles Green: "And when he talks about the low-end movies he loves, he's not kidding. Nor is he smirking."

"Smell that pheromonal whiff of bromance in the air?" asks Chris Lee in the Los Angeles Times. "It's becoming a pervasive stench in Hollywood with two bromantically themed movies coming out - I Love You, Man (due in January 2009) and the stoner action comedy Pineapple Express (which hits theaters on Aug 6) - as well as a Ryan Seacrest-produced television series in development for MTV that's actually called Bromance."

"Funniest pot joke in a movie?" A few suggestions from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey, via Variety's Peter Debruge.

And on a somewhat related note, as the AP's Michael Weinfeld reports, "Now that their feud is up in smoke, Cheech and Chong are high on plans to reunite for their first comedy tour in more than 25 years."

Stoners in the Mist is "one of the most offensive and outrageous pieces of anti-drug propaganda ever produced," argues Paul Armentano in High Times.

Updates, 8/4: "There's a what-the-hell, nihilistic quality to all the doping and slapstick and gore that can be - depending on your mood and biochemistry - very appealing," writes David Edelstein in New York. "But Pineapple Express, unlike Rogen and Goldberg's triumphant last effort, Superbad, is a tad deficient in the human-feeling department. It's empty and formulaic, with plotting that's lazy even by stoner-comedy standards. Without all the yuck-o sight gags, it would be a huge bummer."

Paul Matwychuk: "Anyone who's looking for them can spot the David Gordon Green touches throughout Pineapple Express - his spirit is there in the smeary, blurry freeze-frames that end several of the scenes; in dreamy slow-motion interludes like Seth Rogen and James Franco's bumbling trek through the forest or the montage of clumsy dance moves they perform in a back alley for a bunch of kids they've just sold some weed to; in all sorts of throwaway moments like the shot of the little girl in thick eyeglasses and a bathing suit watching Franco through a fence as he sits in a playground swing, sobbing his heart out as he wolfs down a cheeseburger."

Update, 8/5: "It's largely thanks to Mr Green's chops, as well as blissful work by James Franco, that Pineapple Express rolls along winningly for quite some time despite its excesses," writes Nicolas Rapold in the New York Sun.

Update, 8/6: Sean Axmaker: "[O]ne of the most hilarious and engaging films from producer Judd Apatow's often inconsistent comedy factory, thanks to inspired dialogue, dynamite chemistry between Rogen and Franco and perfectly pitched stoner gags (undoubtedly the result of copious research)."

Freaks and Geeks fans surely nod in agreement: "There are many things to like about Pineapple Express, an old-school action-comedy retooled as a stoner goof," notes the A.V. Club's Scott Tobias, "but Franco's return to humor is a cause for celebration, or at least relief that he's finally come back to us."



Posted by dwhudson at August 3, 2008 5:18 AM