I remember back in the day, I got excited for Funny People. It was when I was really enjoying movies like Knocked Up, 40-Year Old Virgin, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But I missed in theaters, and remember being really excited when I rented it. And it sort of disappointed me. But that was years ago, and I think my taste has developed a little bit, and now that I own it and just watched it, I thought I’d give my opinion. Funny People is a dramedy, as I like to call it. Adam Sandler is a depressed comedian, and is told he has an eight percent chance of living. And so he randomly befriends Seth Rogen, who is a unfunny fuck up who wants to be a comedian, and happens to have Adam Sandler take him under his wing. And I like this movie. But I’ll get my main problem out of the way. I feel it suffers from what some say Judd Apatow movies suffer from, and that is being too long for no reason. And no, I didn’t feel it was too long until it dived into an arc that gave the movie a completely different feel, and that’s where the climax of the movie is. It felt l was on a good run, than near the end I was begging to run in place for no reason at the place I wanted to be the least. That’s when the movie feels too long. The arc involves Leslie Mann’s character, and I don’t hate it, but I don’t care for it. She’s Adam Sandler ex fiancé, and basically she’s remarried, but the marriage isn’t going good, and she might get back with Adam Sandler. And it takes way too long. The movie was a pretty smart dramedy before that, and I really love some parts. Comedy is a special thing, and lies just on the flip side of depression, and I felt this movie handled that really well. I loved the way they showed comedy from the other side, and for the first time I felt bad for the celebrity. Also, I really liked the cameos in this movie. I saw a bunch of comedians, and it was really cool seeing this one. And when else is Bo Burnham and Eminem going to be in the same movie? For me that was fucking awesome. Also, this movie kind of made movies and TV feel a lot like bullshit from there side. Like Seth Rogen’s roommate is on a shitty TV sitcom, and out of context his show seems like total shit, but it feels believable. And then you see Adam Sandler’s movies in the exact same light, and to be honest, they almost seem to be making full of bullshit movies Adam Sandler movies that he’s done. Merman, Re-Do, they seemed like movies he’d do. And to be honest, Adam Sandler played his role pretty spot on. I actually felt like I was going through things with his character and Seth Rogen. Then things got all fucked up toward the end, and I felt really out of it. It was like Judd Apatow just had to get his wife and kids in the movie, and he had to make the story more up his alley. And sorry, I just can’t get into it. But yeah, besides that, the movie is golden. But to be honest, the way Adam Sandler’s sickness goes, I kind of wanted the opposite. I know people could go either way, but I feel they could have written a much smarter and funnier movie that ended like that. It could have been like 50/50 or something like that, it wouldn’t have been a big stretch. But yeah, I feel every actor was on their A game. I loved the side characters. Hell, even one of Aziz Ansari’s few lines in the movie made it onto a Drake song, so there’s a fun fact. And I’d like to tell Seth Rogen’s part. He was the perfect fuck up. You feel for where he’s coming from, but I’ve been in his situation. He looks like a fool, he fucked up, but you could see in his mindset how it worked. And he’d say things that weren’t funny, but you can see how they were funny in his mind, but its terrible. But the joke is how other people react to him, and how bad he messes up. Anyway, I thought this was a good movie. But it got to the point where the next time I’ll watch it (which could be years, I don’t see myself coming back to this very often) I might just skip that whole time in Judd Apatow’s wife’s house. But its still a solid good movie, despite that big problem, and I like it.

Funny People gets a 3/5

Funny People gets THE CHARACTER BADGE