Nudity plus time equals comedy?

While I did see the recent bracketology episode of How I Met Your Mother -- and its brilliant homage ending -- I must admit that I haven't watched the past season or two. Back when I did see it, though, I found it consistently enjoyable, and considered Jason Segel the show's secret MVP. So I was interested to see how his talents translated to the big screen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when I caught an advanced screening last week.

When I said "talents," I meant as an actor and writer. I was not interested to see his bits and pieces in two separate scenes. What is this, How I Met Your Member?

Aside from the full frontal stuff, the movie was kinda... predictable. Peter (Segel) is a songwriter who puts off his dream project by composing morose music for a TV procedural starring his girlfriend, actress Sarah Marshall (Linda C Kristen Bell). She dumps him for a popular rock poseur (Russell Brand), and his devastation is of the weepy pathetic variety. He goes to Hawaii to clear his head, and what vacationing couple should he find there?

The movie does have its funny places -- Brand in particular gets many of the good lines -- but I couldn't help feeling that none of the actors brought anything unique to the characters, and could easily have been replaced (especially Bell). There is one creative idea: Peter's dream project is a Dracula puppet musical, and the friendly hotel clerk (Mila Kunis) exists more or less to bring that creative side out of him.

It's not too much of a spoiler to say that we do get to see some of the puppet musical, performed a bit like Avenue Q but with a real Jim Henson pedigree. Segel will next tackle a new Muppet movie, which could be good, as he has a flair for the melodramatic (watch this clip) and will likely keep his pants on.