The 40-Year-Old Virgin

[Jim of Seattle]

This is one freaking hilarious movie. Plot-wise it goes exactly where you think it's going to go, as deepdown it's a very straightforward romantic comedy. But it never does the same old thing in quite the same old way. It feels simultaneously familiar and brand new.

This is one of those semi-improvised ensemble comedies like "Anchorman", Öffice Space or a Christopher Guest comedy, and in this one everyone in the cast knows how to be funny. Steve Carrell, while brilliant, knows enough to step back and let the rest of the cast, especially his three co-worker friends, get all the big laughs. As funny as Carrell is, he plays the straight man for a surprisingly large chunk of this movie.

Not to say he doesn't have his moments. The scene where Carrell gets his chest waxed is one of those memorable, outrageous scenes where the audience loses control with laughter and the movie almost comes off its hinges, and is the scene everyone will be talking about afterward.

The best thing about this movie is that while it's silly and goes for laughs above all else, everyone manages to make us care about their characters. They all feel authentic in their own way, and they all represent genuine aspects of the male condition in a way that resonated with me over & over. Oddly enough, I was reminded of "Sideways"more than once, though the two movies are not at all ailke.

SPOILER, SORT OF, NOT REALLY
Looking at it from a film student perspective, the screenplay actually tries to do some interesting things with its theme. The action figures and the bicycle at first seem merely props to establish his character, but they actually manage to work them in as weightier metaphors without it feeling obvious or forced. Near the end when he crashes through the billboard on his bike, I realized they were actually working pretty hard at making a real movie out of this by uses of visual imagery to underscore their themes. Nice.

It's very raunchy. I would definitely respect the movie's R rating and kids should be kept away.

A very good time. A

[fodroy]

i'm seeing this tonight and i can't wait.

[WeaselSlayer]

Yeah, this was brilliant. The two highlights for me:
- The improvised scene between Paul Rudd and... um the other guy wherein they play Mortal Kombat and say why the other's gay. Paul Rudd was actually one of my favorite parts of this movie, ever since Wet Hot American Summer he's been a comedic favorite of mine.

- The ending is also one of the best endings of any movie ever. My stomach and throat hurt so much from laughing.

[Jim of Seattle]

Both of those scenes you mentioned were my favorites as well. My wife and I both kept wondering "how on Earth are they going to end this satisfactorily?" and they totally delivered.

[Adam!]

I wanted to hate this movie, but it ended up being one of the best (if not THE best) I've seen this summer. A

[fodroy]

good god, this was hilarious.

A+ all the fuckin way.

[mkilly]

It was pretty funny. I convinced Spud and fluffy to join me in watching it and the consensus is that it was pretty funny; Spud and I have some issues with continuity in the film and I personally didn't care for the coda, but it was good enough. Eh. A-ish

[Tonamel]

"There were two sides to that billboard..."

AWESOME movie. I really didn't think I was going to like it that much, not being a fan of raunchy or embarrassement-based humor, nor am I a fan of romantic comedies, but this delivered in all ways regardless.

And I don't care what anyone says, the ending was one of the best things ever.

[DubT]

I believe it had the best endding I have seen in a moive in a long time i mean seriously Age of Aquarious.

[jezebelus]

I watched it long time ago I can't clearly remember of all but I know I was very dissapointed with this movie. It was somehow too gay and boring

[Caravan Ray]

I am catching up I movies on DVD that I never saw when they came out.

This was great!

I understand the dude this is going to be Max Smart of something. I approve.

Well I don't. Nobody can be Max Smart. But the bloke in this movie was good in this movie.

Very funny script, Well written movie.

[fluffy]

I wouldn't say Carell is a versatile actor, since he basically just plays two characters (clueless manager, browbeaten schmuck) and even those two characters aren't that different from each other. However, the character he does play happens to work in a hell of a lot of different contexts.