This is 40 - Movie Review

This is 40 is known as "The Sort-of Sequel to Knocked Up" but turns out to be only sort of what writer/director Judd Apatow set out to create. Taking two of the characters from his previous hit film and giving them their own movie may have seemed like a good idea, but you still have to deliver a quality story with characters you are compelled to watch. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann attempt to fill that promise by reprising their roles as married couple coming to terms with hitting the big four-zero.

Normally, this is the part of my review where I give a roughly two paragraph synopsis of the story, but this time around I wasn't sure what to write since there isn't much of a story to be found. What you get with this movie is a series of skits loosely tied together by a plot that involves a married couple and their two daughters either arguing with each other or doing something shocking that might play for a few laughs.

There are definitely more than a few laugh-out-loud moments, but they are nowhere near enough to justify a full length motion picture about these people. Their "story" which basically involves dealing with age and learning to get along is so thin that problems and resolutions are repeated over and over to fill the running time and, about two thirds of the way in, I could actually feel the audience willing the movie to end.

Yes, I have included a gratuitous photo of Megan Fox in a bra just as Apatow included her in the movie as nothing more than eye candy which, honestly, I really didn't have a problem with. Her appearances throughout the movie work just as intended and are made even better by the minimal amount of dialog she is given.

You know, I really don't want to say this is a horrible movie, but there really isn't a whole lot to like outside of a few laughs and even those don't go any farther than basic bathroom humor and kids using foul language for a cheap laugh. Apatow really doesn't tell a story as much as he uses the family's problems to create humorous situations, but none of it is interesting enough to justify a full length movie about them. This is 40 could have been a very entertaining movie, but ends up being just a mess that you will wish you never had to sit through.