Knocked Up Consumption Analysis

Knocked Up seemed to get a lot of different responses. Judd Apatow, as we even saw in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is not scared to push the envelope and put images on screen that usually aren’t shown. For this post I am going to look at two film critics responses to the movie. The first one by Joey Leydon written on March 13, 2007 (the movie came out June 1st 2008) and the other by Cinema Dave written on June 8th. Joey Leydon seemed to genuinely like the movie saying it was “uproarious” and that the movie was “bound to generate repeat business among ticketbuyers.” He mentions Apatow’s use of colloquial language and dialogue, saying that [Apatow] has a knack or a “perfect-pitch ear” for both. However, in Cinema Dave’s opinion, the words fall flat. Dave seems more put off by Knocked Up and distracted by the sexual elements and the immaturity of the characters to appreciate the movie. He even says that both the crowds he saw the movie with were displeased and goes on to say that “Knocked Up lacks the discipline of executing a well thought out gag or any original thought on baby making.” Looking at this, it is rather obvious that viewers could either be amused by the snappy dialogue or turned off by the sexual behavior of the characters and the sexual references. Or, even arguably, both. I personally liked Knocked Up, I thought it was funny for what it was, though at the same time, I felt, like in most of Judd Apatow’s movies, that nothing really happens, it is just a snippet of characters lives and different actions. At times I was a little taken aback at how graphic the images on screen got, but the dialogue and the comedy was able to make up for it. However, in Cinema Dave’s opinion, the movie’s script couldn’t save it from the “gross humor.”