Pineapple Express

So, this is the time of year when all of the movies that came out later in the summer start to show up into the video stores. You know, they were good, but not good enough to compete with the summer blockbusters. As a result, now is the time when I catch up on all the movies that I wanted to see last year, but for one reason or another never made it out to the theatre to see. The other night it was Pineapple Express.

To start with I wasn't sure this was going to be in my wheelhouse. I love a good idiot comedy, but since I've never smoked pot before, I was wary that all the pot jokes would go straight over my head. However, I'm willing to put my faith in Seth Rogan so we got the unrated and extended edition.

First off, I was not expecting the level of violence in this thing. I was expecting it to be more a Cheech and Chong kind of thing, with the giggly stoners and cartoon-like shootouts. Um, no. This movie had a ton of gunfights, car chases and blood. In other words, it was awesome. There was more violence in the unrated and extended edition of Pineapple Express than there was in Defiance; a movie that was supposed to be about war. The fights were also funny because they were rough, but with a bit of sloppiness that made it believable. If the potheads had suddenly turned into karate experts who could shoot with no problems it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. But the fact that they would resort to biting or just wailing wildly at the bad guys made it much better.

I need to give credit to James Franco as well. With Seth Rogan you pretty much know what you're going to get. But, it had been a long time for Franco from his Freaks and Geeks days. If you saw Annapolis, FlyBoys or any of the Spiderman movies, then you may have doubted that he still had this kind of acting still in him. But, he was really good in this movie.

Another thing that made the movie enjoyable was that my fears of not getting the pot jokes was unfounded. They kept the stuff that only stoners would find funny to a minimum. Overall, it was a great movie and if you don't mind a lot of violence then I would recommend that you rent it.