The Special Olympics of Comedy

I saw a movie the other day that left me nauseous. No, it wasn't Saw XVI--as gut-wrenchingly graphic as I'm sure it will be. It wasn't Jackass--but that would have been a more appropriate title.
It was Pineapple Express.
Put THIS in your pipe and smoke it:

I must begin by saying I had low expectations from the beginning, so the fact that it failed to meet them is not so much tragic as it is anesthetic. And for those of you who liked it, we'll say that 4-syllable word means mind-numbing in this context.
Hmmm...a couple worthless stoners get catapulted into a whirlwind of misadventures involving evasion of a violent and equally inutile opposition. Dude, Where's My Plot? Never heard that one before. Fast Times ad Ridgemont High, Dazed and Confused, Slackers, Idle Hands, Half Baked, How HighHaroldandKumarHaroldandKumaragain(really?!)Grandma'sBoy ...if you missed the typographical imagery...THEY'RE ALL RUNNING TOGETHER.

Granted, I could include Fast Times, Dazed and Confused, Slackers, and maybe Idle Hands in the Classic-Stoner category--I at least came out of the movie with the same number of brain cells I had when I went in. These lean more toward the Ferris Bueller's Day Off direction: Good 'ole ' '80s '90s-style mischief . . . with a little bud added.

But this new brand of mind-numbing 'comedy' is too much...er...not enough. Fanatics claim, "Oh, well, you have to smoke weed to understand." I'll plead the 5th on that one, but I can tell you it doesn't matter if you smoke or not: Stupid is STUPID.

As the movie was ending, I did see a glimmer of hope. If the main characters (I won't say protagonists, because honestly, I hoped they'd both die horrible deaths) had suddenly awakened in their livingroom--perhaps blitzed into a chaotic stoner-dream sleep--and the whole movie had taken place in their weed-induced imagination after a particularly intense hit (maybe even by the 3-way blunt), at least I could have said I was tricked...and the absolutely preposterous plot would have been excused.
Alas, there was no light at the end of this tunnel.

Now, I won't say I didn't giggle. There were a few silly moments in Pineapple Express when my desire to flee momentarily waned, and I may have cracked a smile, but I have to admit, the best part was when my friend drunkenly kicked over the 5th of Evan Williams he had snuck in, and a clearly-audible glass-crash commotion echoed throughout the theater. If only we had been asked to leave...