REVIEW - THIS IS 40

And so the well has run dry. In the seven years since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Judd Apatow has run out of funny things to say. This Is 40, his semi-autobiographical 'comedy' revisiting the popular supporting characters from Knocked Up, Pete and Debbie, is a film comprised of people saying funny things you've heard in other Apatow films, and people saying non-funny things you've heard in other films, some of them Apatow films. And most of the funny things are now unfunny. What once was fresh and original has become commonplace. Over a near-interminable 2+ hours, Pete, Debbie and their two children are revealed as noxious, hideous characters, vapid, needy and obsessed with minor, middle-class issues that could make any average human being hurl. The attractive couple with the big house and the swimming pool are having problems quitting smoking and eating cupcakes. She longs to have a figure like Megan Fox's, when the difference is no more than a cup size and some tattoos. He's in financial bother, yet persists in lending his father thousands of dollars and mismanaging his fledgling record label. He has a record label and I'm supposed to care about his haemorrhoids?!? She limits her daughters' computer time to a supervised half an hour per day on a whim, stalks her on Facebook, bullies a child to tears and cuts gluten and sugar from the family's food. What a neurotic, controlling, unintelligent bitch! This all has comedic potential, so why does Apatow lavish the humour on the sex, on the tired, boring crudeness that's only occasionally effective? All this family's pathetic 'problems' only become aggravating, and the more they smugly broadcast them, the more aggravating they become. And watching Apatow's wife fondle Megan Fox's breasts may give him a hard-on, but it just gives me a headache; ditto their useless, untalented children. Just because you can, Judd, doesn't mean you should. Eugh. Bad films make me write bad reviews.