This is a baggy, pointless, tiresome film, which is also messy, puerile, cack-handedly gruesome and plain unfunny.

Apatow's former confidence about not underestimating the intelligence of his audiences seems to have largely disappeared.

No sooner did the woeful Step Brothers suggest Judd Apatow's comedy empire was starting to spread itself thinner than a banana skin under an anvil, he strikes back with this almost-classic.

What keeps the film so engagingly off-balance is the mix of perfectly pitched stoner humor and the visceral punch of the genre mixing...