Almost unforgettable

Judd Apatow has been on quite a roll the past four years as a director, writer and producer. “Anchorman,” “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Talladega Nights,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” were all Apatow productions. Now that Apatow has found extreme success, he’s letting more of his friends from his days of lesser success – producing great-but-cancelled TV shows “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared” – have their time in the limelight. Now it’s Jason Segel’s turn with “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

The film centers on Peter Bretter, a man without initiative. Bretter does the score for a cheesy TV show, “Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime,” but he secretly dreams of writing a musical about Dracula. All Peter looks forward to is his time with girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the star of “Crime Scene.” But one day Peter’s world finally comes crashing down when Sarah leaves him.

To cheer himself up, Peter heads to a high-class resort in Hawaii, only to find Sarah there with rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). After sulking around for too long, Peter finds intrigue in the hotel desk girl Rachel (Mila Kunis).

Like all the Apatow-related films, “Sarah Marshall” includes a lot of big laughs, but it also has many heartwarming moments. The film is hilarious, but it falls short of its brethren because Jason Segel cannot carry the film like Seth Rogen can. Segel, who also wrote the script, is solid, but he’s more of a straight man that the comedy bounces off of than a catalyst.

Bell and Kunis are also capable, but they don’t have a lot of comedic power either. Instead, they drive the film’s emotional scenes. Of the cast, Russell Brand stands out the most as the hedonistic rock star, which he plays with more intelligence and subtlety than expected; almost all of his lines are golden.

Even though the film is really funny, it has almost too many quiet moments. It’s not that the dramatic scenes were bad, it’s just that they didn’t seem to have the heart that similar ones did in “Knocked Up” or “The 40 Year Old Virgin.” Moreover, the last 20 minutes are too typical; you know exactly where the character arcs are going. This is probably the case with the other Apatow films as well, but their higher quality doesn’t let you think about it.

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is definitely the funniest film so far this year and probably still will be by the year’s end. However, the comparisons with its brother films are going to be made, and it falls just short of their greatness. But hey, at least Jason Segel got to show his penis on the big screen.