Knocked Up – Extended And Unrated
Reviewer: Lee Griffiths
Issue 97 December 2007
(2 votes, average: 7 out of 10)
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One night only.
The Lowdown: After a one night drunken fumble beneath the sheets, Ben (Rogen) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) find themselves soon-to-be parents, and have less than eight months to get to know each other and try to force a romantic spark. However, the intense relationship soon takes its toll, and Ben and Alison’s circle of friends don’t exactly make life any easier.
Review: Judd Apatow continues his comedic reign with his follow up to The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), and while most entries to the ‘romantic comedy’ stable rely on a string of gross out gags and sappy ‘boy gets girl’ narratives, Knocked Up dares to shake things up a little. Though the film isn’t exactly the saving grace of the date movie, it’s certainly a shining example of its kind (the best since The 40 Year Old Virgin in fact), and manages to deliver the humour and dramatics in perfectly balanced form. Littered with memorable supporting characters (from Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s crumbling married couple, to Alison’s quietly resentful work colleague, Jill (Kristin Wiig)), plenty of sharp dialogue-based humour and some genuinely sweet moments, Knocked Up is a winning concoction of skewed slacker comedy and sweet-natured love story. However, it really could have benefited form being about 30 minutes shorter.
This Extended And Unrated edition adds a few more minutes to the already exhausting 129 minute theatrical cut, and as loveable as these characters are, we don’t really need to be spending that much time with them. In addition to the needless additional minutes, this Region 1 release piles on the special features across a two-disc set. An audio commentary with Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Bill Hader kick off the proceedings and functions as the most insightful segment on the extras. In addition to the commentary, there are numerous excellent appendages, including the amusing ‘Directing The Director’ featurette, which sees the director of Capote shadowing Apatow around the set when the studio loses faith in his abilities (all nonsense of course, but funny), and the fictional documentary, ‘Finding Ben Stone’, which places other actors in the role of Ben. The two featurettes focusing on the hilarious character of Dr. Kuni are, well, hilarious, and with hours of deleted and alternate scenes, behind the scenes glimpses and video diaries to plough through, Knocked Up – Extended And Unrated is a package well worth a Region 1 purchase.
FILM: 7 EXTRAS: 8
DVD Info:
Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd
US Certificate: Unrated
Director: Judd Apatow
Distributor: Universal
Original Release: 2007
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 133 mins
Price: £17.99
Special Features:
Disc 1:
Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Judd Apatow, Executive Producer/Star Seth Rogen And Actor Bill Hader
Deleted Scenes
Extended/Alternate Scenes
‘Line-O-Rama’ Featurette
Gag Reel
‘Roller Coaster Doc’ Featurette
Loudon Wainwright III – Live At McCabe’s: ‘You Can’t Fail Me Now’
‘Topless Scene: Web Design Company’ Mock Deleted Scene
‘Directing The Director’ Featurette
Scene Selection
Disc 2:
Deleted Scenes
Extended/Alternate Scenes
Video Diaries
‘Kids On The Loose’ Featurette
‘Beard-O-Rama’ Featurette
‘Kuni Files’ Featurette
‘Gummy: The 6th Roommate’ Featurette
‘Stripper Confidential’ Featurette
‘Finding Ben Stone’ Documentary
‘Kuni Gone Wild’ Featurette
‘Loudon Wainwright III Scoring Session’ Featurette
‘Line-O-Rama’ Featurette
Gag Reel
Loudon Wainwright III – Live At McCabe’s: ‘Grey In LA’, ‘Daughter’
‘First Sex On Camera’ Featurette
Topless Scene: Restaurant
Raw Footage
Katherine Heigl Audition
June 4th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
After being majorly dissapointed by “Superbad”, I was definately more than just a little bit sceptical when I came to buying this film. Especially as several of the main characters were classed as lay-about stoners, a comedy stereotype I am not a fan of at all.
……what an enjoyable surprise it turned out to be.
Although I wouldn’t class it as a comedy great, this film is an improvement over `Superbad` in every way.
The “Stoners” in the film proved be a lot more likeable than what is normally considered a typical “Bong Head” persona portrayal. Jonah Hill turns down the crassness, and actually comes across as a reasonably likeable comedian, and Seth Rogen pulls off his most likeable character I’ve seen so far. Even Katherine Heigl proves that she can do comedy, and not just be someone who has a pretty face and nice figure, and their is definately good on-screen chemistry between her and Seth Rogen.
Unfortunately the biggest dissapointment, imo, was the normally likeable Paul Rudd, who along with his onscreen wife, provides a fair amount of unwanted, uncomfortable to watch, marital bickering. And their kids are fairly dull and cliched too.
But apart from that, this is definately one of the most enjoyable comedies I’ve seen of last year, and proof that although Judd Apatow, might not be able to pull off as many laughs as the majority of “Frat Pack” movies, he still can carve a comfortable niche for himself in the comedy genre.