I've been asked which is better, The 40-year-old Virgin(FYOV) or The Wedding Crashers(WC). My first reaction out of the theatres was pretty much a dead heat. With the recent release of both dvds I had a chance to see them both again pretty much head to head. They both are r-rated comedies, rely on sight gags aswell as some pretty clever dialogue and they each have a little heart.

I was happy with FYOV because they could have gone all out in the direction of grossout humour when they were writing it. The fact that they didn't shows that the writers and the actors have some actual ideas rather than redoing all those old jokes over again. Character development was as good as it gets for a comedy and they didn't start laying the crude jokes on thick right off the bat so you have some time to appreciate the characters before crazy stuff starts happening. The problems I had with the movie were subtle but numerous, why didn't he know how to drive? This fact doesn't even lead to any really good jokes. Like he says in the movie, He rides a bike because he likes it. So if he knew how to drive he'd probably still bike around. Virginity doesn't mean you spend your firday nights repainting table-top miniatures and collecting action figures. I liked the secondary characters and as the primary joke tellers in the film really tried hard to get in there and work those jokes. The chest hair scene, the live audio track on that really annoyed me in the theatres and continued at home. And what was up with the ending song? This movie sustained a giggle throughout it was entertaining I didn't really laugh out loud at it.

The Wedding Crashers was as crass as the name would suggest, it was upfront about the sleazy dealings and the two main actors were very good at their parts. Vaughn was far better than Wilson though. This movie gets going pretty much right away with the guys crashing weddings and bedding many hot females. The secondary characters were good but Walken was on the ball he was an excellent straight man for the jokes and he even cracked a smile or two at some of the funnier stuff. This movie suffered from what older comedies have and its stretches of the script without a solid joke. this begin said when a solid joke was set up the theatre and my apt was filled with laughter. The problems with this film were fewer but more glaring. Will Farrell's character was a mess, not only could I not believe that Ferrel was the man he was supposed to be, nothing he said enlightened any part of the story and his appearence seems forced. Furthermore, all the gay jokes, I'm not a fan. One or two tops in a movie. This was just too much.

I would rank FYOV about a 6.5 on ten and WC about 7.5 on ten. WC was better because the seondary characters were stronger and funnier, the story had fewer internal errors and the laughter though spread out was loud and whole-hearted.