This Is 40

Forty is an age when a person starts to evaluate what they have experienced in life. It's still an age when you feel young, but you also realize that some things are too late for you. For instance, having a third child, falling in love, or achieving a proper erection without pills because your wife doesn’t attract you. Do the characters Pete and Debbie seem familiar to you? If it’s not because you have similar problems, it might be because you’ve encountered them in the film Knocked Up. We meet the couple again a few years later, with Debbie just celebrating her thirty-eighth birthday and Pete gearing up for his fortieth. However, it’s not just about the birthdays; it’s about the fact that these two are in the midst of a serious marital crisis. (21/03/2013)

Judd Apatow manages to squeeze into his movies a ton of good actors and at the same time he always manages to make the movie half an hour longer than he would have to. The former is nice and it’s actually the reason why I watch his movies. The latter is a bit worse and it’s the reason why I sometimes have a problem with his comedies. This Is 40 is a nice movie. It’s not offensive, at times it is a bit too serious given the cadency of humor, sometimes it is arduously long, but all in all it’s fine. I guess his movies can’t be any different. (14/12/2018)

Judd Apatow tries his best to give a humorous take on life after 40 (or just before 40, since he's already joking about Leslie Mann being 40 when she's 38 – that's a pretty weak gag), but he's not very good at it. The funny moments are mostly just the result of some awkward situation, and unfortunately the notorious "let's at least laugh about it" didn't work for me either. I smiled slightly at the line "J.J. Abrams is ruining our daughter", otherwise all the pop culture references were pointless and self-indulgent. Attempts at a laugh or a joke in this film are more of an expression of desperation because it lacks any perspective. It doesn't even work on the imaginary educational level, because "Judd Apatow imparts life wisdom about life after forty, because he's over forty himself and has a terrible need to show the world what it's like after forty". The cover of the Czech Blu-ray disc says "a bit of a sequel to Knocked Up". I gave Knocked Up 5 stars at the time. This is a worn and very weak 2 stars. Plus the distinctly negative mood of the entire film is extremely annoying. (26/01/2019)