‘Get Him to the Greek’ is Not Even Sarah Marshall Lite September 26, 2010

Oh, the spin-off. A few good movies and a few good TV shows have spawned by spinning off from the original material. But let’s face it: Usually the spin-off sucks. ‘Get Him to the Greek‘ doesn’t suck, but it is nowhere near as fun, fresh, or entertaining as ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall.’ As I often say with spin-offs and sequels, “You would be better off just watching the original again.”

I will admit that Aldous Snow was the funniest character in ‘FSM,’ so naturally a spin-off about him would make sense. Sadly, though, even with the same character, with a new writer the material isn’t a guaranteed success. Nicholas Stoller is close to the source material, having directed ‘FSM,’ but the director is not the writer. Jason Segel wrote the first film and it was a hit. He didn’t write the spin-off and it’s not a hit.

I will also admit that I do not find Jonah Hill funny. Ever. He has the same syndrome as Michael Cera, his co-star in ‘Superbad,’ that he is always playing the same character. It gets tiring, especially here when him and Aldous run the same joke for 109 minutes. Moderaretly related, it saddens me that I share the same birthday as Jonah Hill.

There are a handful of good moments that could optimally have been edited into bonus footage of the original movie. Mainly they include Elisabeth Moss (Peggy from ‘Mad Men’). She is endearing and funny in her stock role, mostly, I think, because viewers will be used to seeing her in the great show ‘Man Men,’ where she is much more conservative.

The only other memorable moment comes when Jonah Hill’s character encounters Tom Felton (Malfoy from ‘Harry Potter’) playing himself in a club. Laughs are had, but let me illustrate a point: I claimed “Jonah Hill’s character” because I cannot even remember his character’s name. That is how unmemorable this whole ordeal is.

So finally I must conclude that if you were looking to kill about 2 hours there are much better ways to do it, but if you absolutely must watch this movie, you will survive. I did. But I cringed at some shameless jokes along the way.