Observe and Report: Review'd

I just got to see an advanced screening of the new Seth Rogen comedy Observe and Report on Monday courtesy of Spill.com's generous givaway. And I have one thing to say; Watchmen has nothing on this movie when it comes to penis. I'll get to that later though, let's start out with a summary of the plot.

Seth Rogen plays a Head of Mall Security named Ronnie Barnhardt with serious delusions of grandeur, treating his job as if his life were being put on the line every day to protect those who need him. When the mall is struck by a flasher, he takes the case very seriously, competing with a detective coming in to solve the case from the police department so he can impress a bubble-headed woman he finds attractive who is disgusted by his very presence. Hilarity is meant to ensue.

I'll start off by saying this is not my type of comedy. Now that we got that out of the way, I'll have you know that this movie was very funny every once and a while when I could get past some of the more crude humor they threw in to please those who can't focus on a sentence void of the word "fuck". Seriously, I can honestly say I've never heard someone talk the way these people do in here. No one uses "fuck" this arbitrarily, not even high school freshmen talk this way. I heard it used as a verb, a noun, an adjective, and I'm pretty sure they used it as an adverb somewhere as well. It was ridiculous, not to mention annoying.

Despite that, this movie was extremely funny in some parts, even if this kind of humor is not for me. But I have some gripes with it. People in the theater were laughing their asses of at some parts, but those parts were void of what I could call a joke. They seemed to burst into hysterical laughter at moments where me and my friend merely chuckled. People were just talking. No joke, no punchlines, just talking. The humor was maybe lost on me, though, since I am not this movie's target audience.

That said, I feel Seth Rogen did a very good job in this movie and was the best part of it all. He's the kid you saw riding the short bus in school despite the fact he wasn't retarded. He's the kid who would flip out for no reason and punch the face of the biggest guy on the football team so he could be cool. He's also the kid who would be hospitalized every other week due to mild concussions and internal bleeding. If you ever wondered how that kid would ever be able to get through life, the answer is he doesn't. But if you ever wanted to see him grown up, you'll see it here. Rogen did a great job at playing a very over the top character while also bringing it down enough so that you could believe he could exist in real life.

But I have a serious problem with the end. I won't spoil anything, but I will tell you what bugged me about the ending. Throughout the entire movie, we're in a realistic setting. People react overall in a completely realistic way to Seth Rogen and his pal's antics throughout this movie, that is, until the end. At the end of this movie they decide to throw it all away, making a shift into a world accepts the completely insane things Seth Rogen does, and even rewards him for them. It really threw me off, and in a way spoiled the rest of it for me. But that's pretty much all I can say without giving out too much information.

Now...

*Sigh*

...the penis.

My god, it's hideous. Even a flamboyant homosexual man who spends his life emulating Paul Lynd would be extremely disturbed by this blight on the planet Earth. At least, I'm assuming so, I am a bit biased against the sight of male genitals being a straight man myself. Still, I doubt anyone wants to see the dangling member of a bald, obese, ugly, and overall disgusting man who would disturb you even with clothes on. Especially not for 3 full minutes as he runs in slow motion. I had to stop looking at the screen for a while, honestly.

Now that we're nearing the end of this review, I have to admit something to you: this was my first Seth Rogen comedy. I've never been interested in his movies, I only went to this one because it was free. Unfortunately, after this movie my mind has not been changed. This was disgusting, stupid, inconsistent, and felt overall unpleasant to watch. Despite this, I did laugh at times, so that bumps it up to a high RENTAL.

Anyway, if you've seen the movie disagree with me I'd love to discuss it with you. Tell me what you think.

Observe and Report, you just got Review'd!