Forgetting Sarah Marshall

As screenwriter,Jason Segel's idea of a story is to basically make it as complicated as possible-there's hardly a moment in the story anyone pauses to genuinely think,they're all swaggering around in this giant move-about because something new happens strikes every five minutes-a whole lot of noise,not much meaning.

It's not all bad.Some of the jokes worked,but for every one of those you had 20 stinker gags seriously testing an already bored and quiet audience.You get a heap of low ones like "You sound like the women on Rock of Love-"I'll KILL YOU"-jokes like these seriously questions whether there were any standards when it came to writing jokes for the film.The best jokes were no doubt the small ones-slipped into conversations and having little to do with anything-when Segel aims big or tries to pull off situational comedy-I couldn't help flinching,thinking that maybe I had inadvertently walked into a bad Ben Stiller film.

Most of the characters are self-absorbed and obnoxious loudmouths,Jonah Hill & Jack McBrayer (who plays Kenneth in 30 Rock) gave bewilderingly humorless performances and were painful to watch-plus it didn't look like they were enjoying themselves either.Kristen Bell (who played Veronica Mars brilliantly throughout its 3-season run) is totally devoid of sex appeal in this supposedly sexual role,and is frustratingly whiny and tool-like (appearing right when Segel seems to have come to terms with the break-up,just to inspire another "hilarious" love run-around).Jason Segel himself seems determined to thoroughly humiliate himself for humor,constantly doing dumb things to get the story going (often into new territory).The only characters inspiring real laughs were Paul Rudd's light-headed surfer and Russell Brand's pompous Brit rocker who were both consistently funny and entertaining.

With the amount of comedy talent attached,Forgetting Sarah Marshall should've come out soaring-but the script's limp brand of humor was a damning curse-often immature and just plain unfunny.Also,the way the film goes bulldozing past things and never once considers developing on anything (that past 90 minutes,so many things have happened but it feels like story hasn't even took off).With a loose sense of purpose and no set of bearings,it falls way off the mark and doesn't come close to the ranks of Judd Appatow's previous efforts.