40 Year Old Virgin

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Summary:
Andy Stitzer is a quiet, boring, 40 year old virgin.  His co-workers find out that he's a virgin, and vow to find a woman to deflower him.

Review:
Steve Carell is a really funny guy, and I was hoping that he'd get to star in his own movie some day. Having said that, I'll seemingly negate this statement by saying that no, I don't think the fumbling vocal anchorman scene in Burce Almighty was funny for one second, and his random quips and beyond retarded stupidity in Anchorman was not my bag of beans. But he still came across as a guy with heavy potential, topped with... The Daily Show baby, yeah!
Here's an extremely rare thing for me; I had not seen one preview for this movie. I read an interview online with Carell, and saw the one poster of his smiling face. It's EXTREMELY uncommon for me to not see anything on a movie before I saw it. I was a little excited because it's a comedy where the trailers won't ruin some funny parts!

I really liked 40 Year Old Virgin. This deserves the financial success of the "FUCK YOU BASTARD SHIT WRITER LOSER MOVIE MAKERS!!" The Wedding Crashers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Comedy is very subjective, so it can be difficult gauging if someone would think a movie will be funny. I love American Pie, Road Trip, Super Troopers, and a number of other similar comedies but hate Meet the Parents, Eurotrip, Harold & Kumar and others, even though all of these comedies are alike in many ways. Lots of peeps I know love all those movies.
So anyways, this is a really funny movie. Carell played it right for his character Andy as a normal, but slightly over caricaturized version of a dork with no friends, but is still happy with his life. His three co-workers are fairly funny most of the time, and there's a lot of "guy" talk that many guys in the real  world - the ones that I hate listening to and don't hang out with much - actually talk about. But if you ARE a guy, writing a screenplay like this would be easy. Just spend a night playing poker, and you have four hours' worth of movie guy talk dialogue!!
In the opening scene, Andy is seen getting up in the morning at his apartment. I was taken aback at his valuable and rare action figure collection that was in every single room. The audience started laughing, and I didn't know why until the next shot AFTER he walks across the hallway. He was sportin' humungous morning wood. Old joke, and the morning wood pissing in different directions joke didn't make me laugh. Nor did his worthless outbursts during his waxing scene. I thought the funniest part of the waxing scene was knowing that it's real... THAT'S funny, but his outbursts were NOT realistic, and so it took away some of the genius of the moment. I also never want to see another movie where an old man or woman will speak endlessly about something sexually perverted for the laughs. The second that Haziz makes his appearance onscreen, I was thinking to myself "Oh shit. It's going to be a broken English old dude saying modern day sex talk." I was right, and once again I was just sick and tired of this unfunny joke.
However, when I wasn't laughing, everyone else in the theater was. To top that off, there are scenes of comedy that have been done endless times in past comedies of this caliber, but this time around it was actually funny, or even funnier. It worked for me, and I was laughing from beginning to end. OK, so a few key gags fell flat for me, but that's alright! Carell's line delivery is hilarious, and the premise itself is clever. The fact that they tried to make him a relatable character instead of an over-the-top walking comedy cliche also helped a lot. His attempted sexual exploits are pretty amusing, except when there's a drunk driver vying for laughs. I take drunk driving pretty seriously, so it's hard for me to find humor in that scene.
Catherine Keener looks really good for her age, and she also did a great job in this movie. Thanks to the smart move of trying to give us laughs while not going overboard with these characters' unrealistic personalities, 40 Year Old Virgin kept me grounded enough to identify with them and feel their emotional predicaments. His co-workers could have been more vicious and conniving than they actually were, but ultimately came across as misguided sages of advice, who honestly wanted to make Andy happier in his life - and how else could you be happier than to get laid, right? It's the more non-humorous details like this that made me enjoy this movie so much more than I thought I would.

GRADE:  B+

Reviewed 8/21/05