Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Despite C.P.'s dislike of movies, I like them and watched this one yesterday and here's what I thought.

This movie is about a guy (Jason Segal) who gets dumped by his actress girlfriend (Kristen Bell) and then when he tries to get away and forget, ends up going to the same Hawaiian resort as her and her new boyfriend (Russell Brand).

For a comedy, this movie's first hour or so is very depressing to me. We can all relate to Segal's plight of getting dumped, which is made even worse because Kristen Bell is a frickin super hottie. If I somehow bagged a serious hottie like her, and got dumped after dating for five years, I would probably lie on my floor in the fetal position as well. The movie splashes in very funny parts during this hour of depression that make it good enough to keep watching. Segal's step-brother and his aloof wife, as well as the newly-wed couple are absolutely hilarious to me.

The problem comes in that it looks like someone at the production company said, "Let's see how many Superbad and 40-year-old Virgin actors we can fit in for little parts." Jonah Hill from Superbad does his patented fat and annoying character. Paul Rudd is very forgettable as a surf instructor. The movie wouldn't have lost anything just cutting every scene with them.

The other problem comes with Kristen Bell, who is far too likable to actually feel that she's the bad guy in this story. Her character has plenty of problems and I almost felt worse for her then for Segal's main character that gets dumped by her. She's hot, seemingly very funny and caring while Segal's character is a lazy oaf who barely cares about anyone but himself. Also the "That 70's show" chick that is the replacement love interest isn't nearly hot enough for me to think, "Well he got the better end of the stick in the end." While the story would have strayed from the usual, find new girl and end up in a better happy place story, I would have been fine with them just getting back together in the end. It probably would be more of a realistic end to the story.

The vampire musical saved this movie for me. Just as I was about to write it off as a mediocre 40-year-old Virgin knockoff, this part slid in and saved the whole thing. I would watch this movie again just to watch that scene.

Overall for all the hype that I heard about this movie, I was less then impressed. It's worth a rental, but that's about it. I give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a 2.5 out of 5.