At this point you know exactly what you’re getting into when
you sit down to watch a Judd Apatow movie. You’ll start out with some raucous,
improvised humor—think frequent use of the word vagina and cursing at inappropriate
moments. After a while there’s a big life complication that needs to be worked
out, and at the end everybody hugs. This is the pattern for the movies he
produces, the movies he writes, and the movies he directs. His latest opus,
“This is 40”, never strays from this formula for a moment, and while it has
worked for him in the past, it fails in comparison to his other films.
