Pineapple Express

"There are a few moderate laughs... but the full-on gory violence is disconcerting and unfunny."

"A fundamentally heartless and unlovable minor work from Team Apatow."

"The thing is so desultory and aimless that it seems like work to try to laugh at it."

"(An) inspired, goofy and finally weirdly hyper-violent celebration of male bonding..."

"Amusing in a verbally dissociated, been-there-toked-that way."

"Frequently hilarious, occasionally sweet and often graphically violent..."

"The laughs - mostly crude, profane and drug-addled - are almost non-stop."

"The film's high point (nudge, nudge) is probably the all-stops-out performance by James Franco..."

"At last, a Judd Apatow production worth memorising."

"David Gordon Green, who's previously specialised in indie dramas of a far more serious stripe, proves adept at knockabout farce."

"It's empty and formulaic, with plotting that's lazy even by stoner-comedy standards."

"Maybe I'd have thought this... was funnier and more exciting if I were as baked as its two heroes."

"This rambunctious paean to pot retains the trademark Apatow sweetness even as it careens from messy vulgarisms to even messier violence."

"It's an unshowy, generous performance [by Franco] and it greatly humanizes a movie that, as it shifts genre gears and cranks up the noise, becomes disappointingly sober and self-serious."

"You'll go limp from laughing."

"Another crazy idea, that mostly works, from the Judd Apatow school of irreverent comedy."

"Franco's sweet and hapless drug dealer is a highlight, the whole buddy premise in fact really holds this film together."

"It's with that action aspect that Pineapple Express differs from Apatow's previous production output, and though, the words "taut" and "pulse-pounding" would never apply, the giddily over-the-top fight sequences, choreographed by veteran stunt coordinator Gary Hymes, handily compensate for the lag time."

"Fans of David Gordon Green, you may well leave feeling confused. Fans of daft laughs and James Franco, you're in for one of the funniest comedies of the year."