Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early review for Steve Carell's upcoming flick THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. If you folks who are just returning from the Midnight STAR WARS showings aren't already tired of 40 year old virgins (Sorry... the timing was too right to not make that over-used joke!) I can tell you that SuperMedz here really liked the film. For the rest of you, give the below review a read for more detail. This could be a good one!
SuperMedz here.
Steve Carrel is The 40 Year Old Virgin. This ad campaign needs to be trashed immediately, because after that South Park episode all I’m ever going to hear is that “Derp Dee Derp Dippity Derp Dee Derp” shit in any of these titles. Fortunately, Virgin is more Office Space than The Hot Chick, and Carrel has far more charm than a carrot or a stapler. No dolphin impressions, but you do see him with a huge erection… more than once. Unfortunately I’m confident that the cut I saw is going to get hacked at, because not only did it have a running time of almost two hours, but hearing some of the always nauseating audience feedback after the film gave me a clear idea of what the “deleted scenes” section on the DVD was going to look like. Some of the darkest bits in the movie are the funniest, but they are the parts that alienated the very mainstream audience the most, so, we’ll see.
Andy marches to the beat of a different drummer (well, not on this website). He collects action figures and keeps them in their box, he works at a Circuit City knock-off, he never goes out, and most importantly, he has never had sex. When three of his co-workers discover his secret during a hilarious round of Poker, the mission is on to get him laid. The premise is simple, and really not that imaginative. When you think about it too much, it really is the stuff of Rob Schneider movies, but it’s Carrel’s self-depreciative charm that makes the film. He really injects his adorable, loveable sense of humanity into the character and you actually start to care about his sexual growth and personal journey throughout the film. It’s an odd struggle, but one that is fun to watch.
If you’ve ever seen The Daily Show, you know what I’m talking about. Steve Carrel has made a career out of playing off of the characters around him. On the show he created humor out of the people he was interviewing, and here he bases a lot of jokes on the actors around him. Mostly, I’m referring to the three friends played by Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, & Seth Rogan. I was not expecting to see Paul Rudd in the movie and was very pleasantly surprised. This is a very different role for him, and he’s absolutely hilarious in a great drunken bit with a video camera. Seth Rogan is also very funny as the token (tokin’?) stoner… there is a LOT of pot in this movie, and hopefully it won’t get cut out, because that’s something that’s missing from a lot of comedies these days, no? Romany Malco is really here for one reason and one reason only. To get Steve Carrel to say things like “Why you bein’ such a ho?” And when he does, it’s funny. Aside from that, he’s over the top, and obnoxious. So, if anything needs to be cut out to save time, I would recommend, losing some of Malco’s loud scenes.
And then there’s Catherine Keener… the reason I was interested in this movie. This is really not her film. She doesn’t show up until the second half of the movie, and by the time she does, the funniest parts are over. Keener is great as usual, but she’s a little too aggressive for this movie. It’s almost like she has a bigger dick than Carell, and she starts to intimidate the audience a little. Overall, I enjoyed her. She says “fuck” a lot, and it made me laugh, but she was the only element of the movie that tested very poorly with the audience. Basically, this is the girl that Andy wants to date, but needs to learn how to have sex with first, and you just don’t always buy it, but do you really need to in this kind of movie? I didn’t need to, to really enjoy it, so it didn’t hurt my experience, but to give the test audience credit, it is poor casting, poor writing, and not really Keener’s fault.
My favorite parts of the movie involved a couple of great sexual harassment gags between Andy and his boss played by Jane Lynch. I am afraid these will get cut out. She uses the word “fuck buddy” which I don’t hear too often in movies. Also there is this huge “I know you’re gay because…” scene that had the audience rolling in the aisles. A lot of this movie is so un-PC, and I hope that they don’t lose their balls and edit it down, because if it means anything I am in fact gay, and I, for one, was not offended by any of the “I know you’re gay because…” stuff. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. And please… please… keep the pot in the movie. All of it. And yes… there is this waxing scene that I am sure you will hear all about. I am not even going to be guilty of giving that one away.
It’s REALLY REALLY REALLY funny! What else can I say about a comedy, right? I think that Steve Carell is absolutely adorable, but ultimately, I think that this is the type of movie that will do decent business and ultimately find its following the way Office Space did. It deserves better, because it’s hilarious from start to finish. It has a lot of heart too. I should mention that the theater I saw it in, had a fire halfway into the movie, and it was evacuated. Most of the audience waited for a half hour to get back into the theater, because they wanted to see the rest of the movie that badly. This is the type of comedy where out of a hundred jokes, one falls flat.
Oh… and just wait till you see Steve Carell’s impression of David Caruso in Jade…
