Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse, starring Judd Apatow contract players Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen, is, as far as I am aware, the first YouTube joke trailer to be expanded into a studio film. In its original form, Apocalypse takes the precepts of the Incongruous Genre Mashup Trailer (see Shining, 10 Things I Hate About Commandments) and transposes them to what is essentially a live-action comedy sketch that wouldn’t seem out of place bound to a single set on Saturday Night Live or at the Upright Citizens Brigade. That it has a single location is crucial to its comic charms, which makes it seem all the more unlikely as the starting point for a feature film.
It’s a gross-out, odd-couple comedy –– complete with Randy Newman on the soundtrack –– but shot with a Michael Bay-esque high-contrast golden glow. Baruchel and Rogen (each plumming character types that would be familiar to any fan of Freaks and Geeks or Knocked Up) play roommates, apparently trapped in their apartment while the apocalypse rages outside their window. The central joke of the short is that in the midst of unseen, unspecified, world-ending horrors, these two whiny, schlubby guys are finding that true terror is being stuck with one another. They can’t stand each other, but they’re too complacent and/or chicken to go outside. It’s No Exit for the Funny or Die set.
How Apocalypse will actually manage the transition from YouTube to multiplex remains to be seen. Somehow, I can’t imagine inflating it to feature length without showing us what’s actually going on outside the apartment –– thus destroying the short’s core concept.
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