The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.
Today’s prompt: What’s a movie that most fans and critics loved but you hated?
There aren’t very many films I *hate*, and most of the ones I do are generally not well-thought of by critics or fans in general. So I had to think for a while to come up with Knocked Up, but I think it definitely fits the criteria, even if “hate” is still a word I hesitate to use. I do actively dislike it, though, so I figure that’s close enough.
Knocked Up is incredibly well-regarded by critics and fans alike, and even though Judd Apatow did other films before it, it’s probably the one the kicked off the current Apatow film trend. He usually just produces films rather than directing them, but he did everything on Knocked Up, so I feel pretty justified in saying that I just don’t like his stuff. It’s only funny in a juvenile sort of way, and most of the humor comes from this group of man-children being pushed into adult situations that they can’t handle. Like a maternity ward. I’d say I don’t get it because I’m a woman, but a lot of Knocked Up fans are women, so it’s not as simple as that. It just does nothing for me, I don’t believe these characters should be together (or would be in real life, which has NOTHING to do with Rogen’s physical appearance and everything to do with the mismatch in the two characters’ personalities), and if Allison is Apatow’s idea of a well-written female character, then yeah. I rest my case. Maybe she isn’t, but that’s the impression I get from reading other reviews.
What keeps me from *hating* the film is the Paul Rudd-Leslie Mann subplot, a more dramatic look at a marriage that’s not quite working. THIS is the interesting story in the movie, and if they do a spinoff focusing on these two characters (which has been rumored for a while), I will watch it – even though I’m prepared to be disappointed. But in Knocked Up, this intriguing and emotionally truthful story was utterly eclipsed by the mediocrity and boorishness of the main plot. Since I hate to be a total downer, here’s a short clip from the part of the movie I DID like.