Get Him to the Greek takes a generic road trip comedy and tries to spice it up by adding two very funny people: Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. It also reteams the duo of Nicholas Stoller and Judd Apatow, director and producer of 2008’s memorable Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Marshall hit a note that ended a perfect narrative beat of Apatow’s R-rated comedies. The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005; Knocked Up in summer 2007, Superbad later that season; Step Brothers the following year. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a movie about stealing love, and no man did that better than Mr. Russell Brand, the British comic who took our hearts as over-the-top rocker Aldous Snow of Infant Sorrow. So what do Stoller, Apatow, and Segel (who wrote Marshall, but here only co-produces and is credited for characters) do with these eccentric folks, who seemed to every bit embody aspects of the entire genre of comedy they were aiming to solute? Take Brand, give Hill a bigger role, and stretch it an Apatow runtime of one hour and fifty minutes, all the while losing the heart and majestic beauty of past paraphernalia.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad movie – it’s just not as great as Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Not that I expected it to be, but Get Him to the Greek is different entirely. (Hats off for giving Kristen Bell her own hilarious cameo, the bombshell who played Segel’s lust-after paparazzi magnet in Marshall.) Though by making this less a spin-off, less of a sequel certainly does have its advantages. Aldous Snow is recreated once again as a “White African Jesus”, all the bizarre oddities of Marshall’s introduction coming along with it. Of course the movie also gets another chance to be comedic, and when this thing is funny it’s really funny. But that comes with a price. Get Him to the Greek is like watching only what happened to Kristen Bell in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, without Jason Segel occasionally popping in.

The central conflict of an ignorant man moving past his celebrity girlfriend after she dumps him is erased, Greek not doing too great a job trying to find another line to walk down. Sure, it hints at some every now and then. Colm Meaney pops up in a minor role of the Monty Python sort as Jonathan Snow, Aldous’s depraved father. Stoller treats him as a man rather than a comedic tool, which in turn gives the audience a chance to recognize Aldous in a non-commercial way. It’s just how conventional everything is done that makes Greek not so much an alternative to this weekend’s Killers or Marmaduke, but just another wide release in an air-conditioned movie theater.

I’m getting ahead of myself not talking first about what the movie is actually about, but as you can so clearly tell from the title Get Him to the Greek is a buddy comedy about two dudes trying to get to the Greek theater in Los Angeles for a sold-out anniversary concert. I hope I’m not coming off as a bully solely towards the title of the film; I was extremely excited to see Get Him to the Greek. Not only because one of my favorite people in all of Hollywood today served as producer, but there’s a blaring allotment of fun to be had here. Greek, to further divulge into the plot more than it being a comedy about complete opposites, specifically follows record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill, given a larger part here than in Marshall but acting as a different character). Hired by CEO Sergio Roma (played by the scene-stealer in all of Greek, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, acting as self-deprecating as and reminiscent of Robert Downey Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder) to escort the maniac lead of Infant Sorrow Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from London to California. Snow has next-to destroyed his career, loving more women than by what modern dignitary slang would refer to as “a lot” and drinking more than a fish who stumbled upon a crevice of clean water amid the oil spill on the beach shore.

Hill, who in Marshall established a calm presence under the wing of Hollywood wannabes, passes no standard above your typical Adam Sandler flick. Stoller is stuck with writing the screenplay this time around, and instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to deliver as wild a follow-up to Forgetting’s as that movie’s tropical oasis held cult screen vibe, brings up Aaron and Aldous as “the fat one” and “the crazy one”. So much was lost here, and without these wonderful names behind the scenes I would have given this one an easy “skip it” without feeling all too lousy. However this is our only chance to see anything remotely close to Judd Apatow, so I can’t help but be lenient with the guy. Still, Greek doesn’t drive Hill and Brand to their goal with character. It guides us slowly across the finish line with the help of big names (Meredith Vieira of the Today Show; Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich; Tom Felton from Harry Potter) and a cliché Apatow members fought so very hard to redefine.

RENT IT.