Despite some crass (but usually funny) moments, this wasn’t the brainless nerd-a-thon it could have been. The title character (Steve Carell) hasn’t quite gotten past his childhood. His apartment features a poster of Asia (the 1980s rock supergroup, not the continent) and a display of action figures from The Six-Million-Dollar Man. Yet he’s not some aging Urkel who’s merely an object of ridicule. The movie’s funny because you can buy the character and therefore the premise. This shouldn’t be surprising, since director and co-writer (with Carell) Judd Apatow created the brilliant TV show Freaks and Geeks, which also wrung laughs out of sexual frustration. This isn’t quite up to that level. The supporting non-virgins (they’re all supposed to be co-workers at Circuit City—sorry, Super Tech), full of bad advice, are amusing, but not wildly original. And I didn’t go home feeling the sort of fondness I did toward the Freaks and Geeks bunch. But I did laugh.
IMDB link
viewed 8/27/05 (?); reviewed 8/29/05
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