Movie Review - Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I've always been a fan of Jason Segel ever since Freaks and Geeks so it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the first movie written by him. It uses the same type of humor you should be used to by now if you like most have been watching all the movies being made by Judd Apatow and the actors he got to know from making great/canceled shows like Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. The movie gets the ball rolling fast with a great scene early where Segel's character stands naked as his TV-star girlfriend was breaks up with him and throughout the entire scene the camera randomly pans to a shot of his limp dick. Hilarious. After confiding in his ex's brother played by Bill Hader Segel's character decides to take a trip to Hawaii to relax and enjoy himself. Of course his ex and her rock star boyfriend are staying in the same hotel, and this situation provides most of the humor. While at the hotel Segel falls for the receptionist played by Mila Kunis who is equally interested in him. These two work well together in the movie and their characters like most of the others feel about as believable as the movie wants us to think they are. On the resort our main character runs into a stoned surf instructor played by Paul Rudd, an obsessed fan played by Jonah Hill, and a Christian newly wed played by Jack McBrayer who plays Kenneth on NBC's 30 Rock. It is his character that really detracts from the movie, he is afraid and disturbed by sex and his wife's desire for it, but none of the jokes that spring from this subplot are funny at all. The movie had a lot of good laughs there was no need to add an entire subplot for the purpose of some cheap jokes about a guy not being able to have sex. The time wasted on this character could have been used to show more flash-back scenes of Segel's first relationship which I thought really added to the depth of his and Kristen Bell's character and made them feel much more realistic. On a sidenote, the flash-back of Segel's character spending a full-week in sweat pants is easily the funniest scene in the entire movie especially if you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings. There are two small twists in the movie but it eventually ends pretty much how you would expect it to which isn't a bad thing I guess since getting to that point was pretty damn funny. I'm sure like most of these other movies this one will get better after multiple viewings.