Sara Vilkomerson’s Guide To This Week’s Movies: Brotherhood of the Traveling Weed

We had high (heh) hopes for Pineapple Express, the latest boy-bonding-bordering-on-romance comedy from the prolific Judd Apatow universe. After all, it had what seemed like a perfect storm of elements going for it: the onscreen reunion between Freaks and Geeks’ Seth Rogen—who co-wrote the script with Superbad partner Evan Goldberg—and James Franco; a quirky, entertaining premise (more on that later); and behind the camera, indie favorite David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls). We went in wanting to fall in love. We left feeling confused and—gasp!—questioning the staying power of Apatow and his gang.

Pineapple Express asks this question: What would an action movie look like if the two would-be heroes were as constantly high as an elephant’s eye? Mr. Rogen plays Dale Denton, a process server who inexplicably dates a high-school student and really, really likes to get stoned. His drug dealer Saul (James Franco) hooks him up with a new and incredibly rare strain of weed called Pineapple Express—which is described as being so miraculous that it smells “like God’s vagina.” Dale goes to deliver a summons and arrives just in time to smoke up beforehand, when he inadvertently sees a man get smoked by the city’s most dangerous drug lord (the great Gary Cole) and a crooked cop (Rosie Perez). In his haste to flee the scene, Dale leaves behind a telltale sign—a roach of Pineapple Express—and, after grabbing Saul, goes on the run.

The acting and chemistry between the two actors is by far the best part of the movie; Mr. Franco makes an incredibly sweet and slightly addled drug dealer. But as the film gets further and further away from reality and becomes increasingly—and rather shockingly—violent, the laughs become overshadowed by a somewhat muddled (we refuse to say “half-baked”) plot. Danny McBride (The Foot Fist Way) is a welcome addition to the crew and, as with other Apatow pictures, the love story of male friendship is sweet. But by the end of the movie, we were unsure if we were watching an homage to Pulp Fiction or Cheech and Chong. More Twizzlers, and pronto!

Pineapple Express opens today at Regal Cinemas Union Square Stadium 14, Regal Battery Park Stadium 11 and AMC Loews 84th Street 6.

A LOT SURE can happen in three years. In 2005, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, based on the best-selling series of novels by Ann Brashares about the close friendship of four young women, was a surprise hit. At that time, only two of the actresses were at all well known—The Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel and Joan of Arcadia’s Amber Tamblyn, while the other two with the funny names—Blake Lively and America Ferrera—were still working on gaining audience recognition. Cue 2008, and Ms. Lively’s Gossip Girl and Ms. Ferrera’s Ugly Betty are among the more talked-about shows on prime time. Meanwhile, Ms. Tamblyn’s and Ms. Bledel’s IMDB pages have gone remarkably (and surprisingly) quiet. Must have been some interesting times on the set of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2!

The film picks up after the ladies have been apart all year, and each have moved further away—spiritually and geographically—into different interests: Carmen (Ms. Ferrera) is a student at Yale who’s been offered an internship at a theater festival in Vermont (we think it’s a poorly disguised Williamstown); Tibby (Ms. Tamblyn) is a student at N.Y.U.; Bridget (Ms. Lively, showing an impressive amount of hair and leg) is a student at Brown, and goes to Turkey on an archeological dig; and Lena (Ms. Bledel) has been pried away from her Greek Adonis of the first film, and is studying at Rhode Island School of Design. And what holds them together? The jeans, of course!

The pants seem to have been unfortunately Bedazzled since the first film. And these days, they aren’t working so well, as the ladies find staying BFFs harder as they head off into different directions. The premise, which seemed effortless in the first go-round, this time seems slightly strained; perhaps tellingly, each actress seems to perform better in her own story line than when in the group. Missing in action this time is Bradley Whitford, but Kyle McLachlan shows up as a theater director, and Blythe Danner plays Ms. Lively’s grandmother in the most strange of subplots, seemingly lifted from In Her Shoes. The good news is that we’re pretty sure these four won’t grow up, move to Manhattan and drink cosmos and discuss shoes into their 40s. The bad news is that it’s hard to imagine those jeans—or these particular friendships—making it even half that far.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 opens today at AMC Loews 19th Street and Cobble Hill Cinema.

svilkomerson@observer.com