‘Engagement’ goes on and on

April 27, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

“The Five-Year Engagement” plays like a five-episode, R-rated story arc from “How I Met Your Mother.” With more profanity and more explicit sex. And considerably less drinking. And no Neil Patrick Harris.

Jason Segel, co-star of both the TV show and the movie, and his “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” team, feed us two hours-plus of recycled gags from the show (e.g. Segel’s “Big Foot” impersonation) and bits that might have been in the sitcom, but were too expensive for it. They layer the soundtrack with music by Van Morrison, whose love songs are used so often in the movies that they’re collected on a CD, “Van Morrison Goes to the Movies” (which apparently Segel, co-writer and director Nicholas Stoller and I all own).

And all that adds up to is an occasionally engaging romantic dramedy that never blows away that “Where have I seen this before?” feeling.

Emily Blunt and Segel are Violet and Tom, young lovers in San Francisco planning a wedding. Until she gets a fellowship to study and work at the University of Michigan, in that “Water Winter Wonderland” that’s better suited for wolverines than big-city folk.

He gives up his job as sous chef at a trendy restaurant, and the wedding — a big wedding — is postponed. He’s resigned to it, and supportive. She’s distracted, even after the pep talk with her ditzy sister (Alison Brie, a stitch).

Much of the comedy here is built around the funk that Tom goes through far away from his dream life in his dream city and his dream job. He gets a little too into hunting, becomes a little too fond of dining on deer and dons Ted Nugent facial hair.

His first faculty cocktail party in Ann Arbor tells him all he needs to know. He mentions he’s a chef, and all anybody can think of to ask is if he saw the Pixar cartoon “Ratatouille.”

Violet is spending too much time at the office, running psychological experiments with her “bad decisions” specialist mentor (Rhys Ifans, funny enough) and judging Tom by what she’s learning.

And the wedding plans keep tumbling backwards.

Segel, so wonderfully lost in “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” suffers a serious case of Zach Braff-itis here. He’s content to warm over what he does on TV.

As with every Judd Apatow production, there’s nothing here that wouldn’t have been better at a shorter length and quicker pace.