Merrick here…

Here’s X-Ray with a look at KNOCKED UP. He sent in this review after a screening late last week, but I was slow getting it posted because I was super lame (more so than usual). My apologies to X-Ray for the delay; we really appreciate your efforts.

This review…is effusive in its praise. Which will, undoubtedly, make vigilant Talkbackers scream…PLANT! He’s not a plant…at least there’s nothing at all about his previous AICN reviews which would lead us to believe so. He loved this movie…pure and simple.

Here he is to tell you more about it…

Hey, it's X-Ray Cat. I was in the first audience to see KNOCKED UP, which isn't due out for nearly a year.

In a way, I'm a terrible choice to tell you about this film, because I'm a straight-up Apatow fanboy. I think FREAKS AND GEEKS and 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN are on par with classic Bill Murray, Woody Allen, etc., and I couldn't have been more excited about this new one. So get ready, because I'm about to gush like an open wound.

You know how 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN was completely filthy and hilarious, but Then also surprised the hell out of you by being much sweeter than a Nora Ephron script could ever dream of being? KNOCKED UP takes it to the next level like a motherfucker. I don't want to undersell the humor, because the movie is consistently hilarious throughout, whether you're following the troubled marriage of Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, or watching Seth Rogen and his dream-team cast of roommates Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchal, and Charlyne Yi.

But honestly, if you're looking for a movie with wall-to-wall tear-faced laughter, you can't do any better than BORAT and IDIOCRACY this year. But KNOCKED UP is the better film. It's the sort of film that comes along and makes you realize that the Oscars is such a broken system, because they would never pull a stick out of their ass to nominate a movie like KNOCKED UP, a movie that has a two-minute conversation about Julianne Moore's pubic hair no sooner than the opening credits finish up.

But it deserves it. The two main performances by Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl are two of the best performances I've ever seen in a "comedy." They are spookily natural, and watching their relationship fumble together in the midst of an unexpected surprise is never less than 100% believable, sad, frustrating, and of course funny.

While it is similar to Steve Carell's fantastic 2005 performance, it works in a different way. This isn't the sort of movie, for example, that could end with the cast doing an all-out musical tribute to Earth, Wind, and Fire. The humor is something that just happens, like in a John Landis movie where the jokes never feel carefully constructed and handed to you in pre-chewed form, but instead just roll by like constant tumbleweeds in their natural habitat. And it has the classic feel of a Landis or Hughes film, the sort of film kids will track down as soon as they can to laugh their minor asses off at the parade of F-bombs, bong hits, and friends going to Vegas and eating shrooms to watch Cirque de Soileil, and then when they hit their 20's they'll appreciate it even more as it becomes the perfect movie to watch after a pregnancy scare.

Hell, it's a damn near perfect movie either way. I told you I was going to gush. The screening seemed to go really well, it got huge laughs and lots of positive afterward chatter. If the scores are high enough, they should really push it up for you guys, because it was in a much more final-looking stage than most of the test screenings I've seen this year which were only screened half as much time in advance.

The constant improv that can lead to jarring and awkward cuts in VIRGIN and TALLADEGA NIGHTS is actually cut together exceptionally well here. The timing never felt off, there were obviously no effects to work on, and besides slapping on credits and maybe some less temp-sounding music, it was pretty much releasable. Certainly not enough problems to merit an August 2007 release. It could even jump up to this December, and kick the ass of FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS in the awards race in your head.