I Love You, Man

Yes, I Love You, Man stars Jason Segel and Paul Rudd, who are hilarious in the canon of Judd Apatow-endorsed comedies of late. And yes, the title emulates the once-fresh male-bonding nostalgia of Superbad and Pineapple Express, but its major flaw lies here: I Love You, Man isn’t funny. Paul Rudd plays excellent supporting characters in all of his other comedies: he is nice to look at and always has an excellent dim-witted one-liner, but as the leading man of I Love You, Man he falters and never really develops a character of his own but rather seems to be impersonating Steve Carell. If you’ve seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Freaks and Geeks then you know Jason Segel is an engaging performer, but he is not at the top of his game in I Love You, Man either, and not looking so pretty. So what went wrong? When the creatives involved have cranked out hit after hit it would be easy to go into production on yet another project feeling over-confident about an under-wrought script, and perhaps it has worked for them in the past to dress up a bare-bones script with adlibs and inside jokes throughout. But, in truth, the narrative of I Love You, Man is starving to be fleshed out and the laughs never come, even with a supporting cast that includes Lou Ferrigno, Jon Favreau, and Andy Samburg whose talent was virtually wasted in a non-comedic role. There are certainly a few funny parts, but if you want to see it, wait for the DVD.