This Is 40 - Can be hard going at times

`This is 40' is the - sort of - sequel to the highly-watchable `Knocked Up.' Here some secondary characters get their own film about the perils and pitfalls of turning forty years old.

The first thing you need to know is that it's long - just over two hours. This might not be that special for a drama or big budget action film, but for a comedy, you have to have a lot of jokes in the script to keep up the momentum. Sadly, This is 40 doesn't have enough of them.

There are a few funny moments, but there are more than a few long periods of time where you don't so much as raise a smile. It's like the actors weren't given a script and told to just improvise and see where it goes - it has a real `hit and miss' kind of feel to it.

Plus there are simply some scenes which try too hard to be gross and outrageous, but simply end up being completely unfunny - I found it quite hard to continue watching after the scene which comes at around forty-five minutes where the wife walks in on her husband as he tries to take a photo of an `intimate rear body part' to check it's okay. It just wasn't funny, not even in a gross way.

I stuck with it to the end and there were a few jokes which I was glad I saw. The problem is the whole structure of the film. It's about the husband and wife deciding they need to change to survive together and ending up deciding that actually they don't need to. Um, interesting character arc.
Then you have the relationship. Basically, 9/10 times the woman is completely right and the husband is a dumb, insensitive butt of all the jokes. This `reverse sexism' does get a little old after a while.
It's a pity this film wasn't half an hour shorter as the jokes would have flowed into each other better, creating a much tighter comedy. It's not bad, but it's not that funny either.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back