Blue Hawaii ... Jason Segal (right) and Jonah Hill star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Surely it's about time for the Judd Apatow backlash? The man behind last year's two most successful comedies, Superbad and Knocked Up, has had an almost unprecedented run of critical success. But this latest venture, for which Apatow is on board as producer, is without Seth Rogen, and at first glance seems rather more conventional than its predecessors in terms of the subject matter upon which the laughs are based.
Nevertheless, the critics have been generally positive. The Guardian's Russell Brand in particular gets some glowing reviews (he plays an over-the-top English rock star).
"It's solidly entertaining, if a little scattershot," writes Empire's Nick de Semlyen. "Like Apatow's pregnancy-centric Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is an amiable and deeply mellow comedy that takes a situation which really shouldn't be funny - in this case, a guy dealing with the burn of heartbreak - and squeezes jokes out of it like juice from a plum."
"Although it contains plenty of producer Judd Apatow's signature raunch, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a comedy to remember, a wryly funny, smartly written and acted story from the (broken) heart," writes Hollywood.com's Pete Hammond, while Time Out's Nicholas Stoller calls it "a film of glorious moments and memorable scenes, lovingly crafted characters and sparkling one-liners".
Our own Peter Bradshaw is more circumspect, however. "There are some laughs, but not that many," he writes. "And a weird, nagging undertow of self-pity and resentment of beautiful women making honest guys' lives a misery."
Did you catch Forgetting Sarah Marshall at the weekend? What did you think? And how does it compare to Apatow's earlier films?
