This Is 40

Reprising their Knocked Up supporting roles, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann have morphed from Lifestyles of the Rich, Ribald, and Rowdy into Lifestyles of the Selfish, Spoiled, and Stressed in writer-director Judd Apatow's quasi-autobiographical This Is 40. In suburban Los Angeles, Pete (Rudd) and Debbie (Mann) are handling their respective 40th birthdays quite differently. Cupcake-loving Pete is celebrating, while Debbie, an angst-ridden sneaky-smoker/health-food addict, is into denial. Not that Pete has much to rejoice about, however: his record label is in financial ruin (despite heroic efforts to make ‘70s star Graham Parker relevant again). And, unbeknownst to Debbie, Pete has been secretly slipping money to his spendthrift father (Albert Brooks), who has a young wife and identical triplet toddlers. Meanwhile, Debbie realizes that her trendy clothing boutique is losing money; in fact, thousands of dollars are missing and suspicion falls on her employees (Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi). Plus, Debbie is coping with a tense reconciliation with her estranged father (John Lithgow), who has re-married and started a second family. To call Pete and Debbie's biting, bickering relationship dysfunctional is a gross understatement (many of their intimate marital squabbles take place in the bathroom, where Pete hides to play games on his iPad). Mann is Apatow's real-life wife and their children appear as Pete and Debbie's overindulged offspring, with Jason Segel, Chris O'Dowd, Lena Dunham, and Melissa McCarthy lending support. A foul-mouthed, forced comedy that simply isn't funny, this is optional, at best. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Judd Apatow, deleted scenes (10 min.), live performances from Graham Parker & The Rumour and Ryan Adams (8 min.), “Line-O-Rama” (5 min.) and gag reel (4 min.) segments, and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film, a “making-of” featurette (50 min.), a music section with additional live performance footage (29 min.), more deleted scenes (26 min.), extended and alternate scenes (19 min.), a “Graham Parker & The Rumors: Long Emotional Ride” band segment (18 min.), “Kids on the Loose 3” outtakes (12 min.), the behind-the-scenes featurette “This is Albert Brooks (At Work)” (11 min.), a segment with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (9 min.), a gag reel (5 min.), another “Line-O-Rama” segment (4 min.), a “Brooks-O-Rama” with Brooks (3 min.), “Biking with Barry” outtakes (3 min.), a “Bodies by Jason” commercial (2 min.), an audio interview with Apatow on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” the BD-Live function, and bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a whopping extras package for an underwhelming film.] (S. Granger)