When 2005’s 40-Year-Old Virgin became a hit, this launched what we will refer to as the “Judd Apatow Cinematic Universe” (JACU). A series of quirky character comedies in the mainly romantic vein followed.

Though many did well at the box office, they lacked real room for sequels, as they came with pretty self-contained stories. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean all of these characters vanished after their “one and done” efforts.

2007’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall didn’t turn into a huge hit, but with $105 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, it made a profit. It introduced British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) as a supporting character.

With 2010’s Get Him to the Greek, we follow Aldous on another adventure. Following a flop record and his breakup with girlfriend Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), Aldous collapses into a state of inebriated excess. This threatens his ability to play a big comeback concert at LA’s Greek Theatre, the location of a triumphant recorded show 10 years earlier.

Back in the States, lowly music label intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) gets the task to bring Aldous from London to LA in time for the show. With his future career on the line, Aaron takes this gig and deals with a slew of problems along the way.

Whereas most of the JACU movies tend toward fairly small personal tales, Greek goes for a broader path. Given its focus on a rock star, it leans away from the “ordinary guy” stories in flicks like Marshall or Virgin.

Granted, Aaron’s story leans in that direction, but his involvement in Aldous’s glitzy world takes him in directions far from those in the other flicks. While Greek gets into the usual personal domains, it dresses itself much more in “buddy road trip” clothes than its peers.

Although I appreciate the deviation from the standard Apatow template, Greek doesn’t really work. It splits itself too much between the broad showbiz-related comedy and Aaron’s more typical JACU relationship domains to satisfy.

Of course, prior JACU movies mixed character drama and broad humor as well. However, they more fully existed in the “real world”, whereas Greek often gets too hung up on its showbiz trappings.

Some of this gives Greek juice for a while. The musical parodies can amuse, and the general vibe offers a giddy ride early in the film.

Unfortunately, before long Greek starts to collapse under its general lack of substance and its confusion about where it wants to go. The movie doesn’t reconcile its two sides well, so neither tends to succeed.

Greek also feels too reliant on celebrity cameos. These do decrease as the movie settles, but they nonetheless come across too much like they exist as their own purpose, not as organic aspects of the story.

In spite of its flaws, Greek manages a smattering of laughs, many of which come from Sean “P Diddy” Combs’ self-effacing turn as a record label owner. Not all the movie’s funny bits come from Combs, but he owns a large percentage of them.

Otherwise, Greek largely fails to ignite. Despite moderate entertainment at times, it just drags and doesn’t offer the substance or humor it needs.

Footnote: a quick comedic tag appears after the end credits.

Get Him to the Greek appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though not great, the image generally satisfied.

Sharpness seemed fine most of the time. The occasional soft shot materialized, but nothing too severe occurred, as the majority of the movie looked pretty accurate.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and edge haloes failed to appear. I also didn’t see any specks, marks or other print flaws.

Colors looked positive. The image offered a low-key mix of teal and amber/orange tone much of the time, and the hues seemed fine within those parameters.

Blacks appeared reasonably dark and tight, while shadows showed clear delineation. All of this was good enough for a “B”.

I thought the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Greek remained unexceptional but acceptable. Of course, I didn’t expect a dazzling soundfield from this sort of comedy, and I got exactly what I anticipated.

In terms of effects, general ambience ruled the day. Surround usage stayed limited, so the back speakers gently fleshed out various settings but did little more than that.

In those forward channels, the music provided nice stereo separation and opened up the mix reasonably well. Given all the songs, music turned into a more prominent element than usual. The track functioned appropriately for the story.

Audio quality appeared fine. Dialogue was consistently warm and natural, without edginess. Effects were a minor component of the mix, and they seemed appropriately subdued and accurate.

The music came across as distinctive and full. Outside of more songs than usual, this was a standard “comedy mix” and it became a positive reproduction of the material.

We get two versions of Greek here: both the movie’s R-Rated Theatrical Edition (1:49:11) as well as an Unrated Cut (1:53:51). How do the two differ?

The “Unrated” cut simply extends existing scenes with extra jokes, so don’t expect any truly unique material. Writer/director Nicholas Stoller said he prefers the theatrical, but both work about the same.

Alongside either cut of the movie, we get an audio commentary from writer/director Nicholas Stoller, producer Rodney Rothman and actors Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Rose Byrne and Elisabeth Moss. A running, screen-specific track, Stoller, Hill and Byrne sit together, and Brand joins them midway through the film. Moss shows up via phone fairly early and sticks around most of the time, while Rothman makes a short telephone visit late in the film,

The commentary looks at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, music, and stories from the shoot. This never becomes the most informative chat, as it prefers a comedic, ambling vibe.

Still, the track gives us enough about the movie to offer decent informational value. The tone suits the discussion as well, so this becomes a pretty enjoyable piece.

An interactive feature called U-Control offers a way to skip to the movie’s musical numbers. With this activated, you can jump to specific songs or simply allow text notes about the tunes to appear onscreen as you watch the film. It feels like a wholly forgettable addition.

Continuing on Disc One, we find three featurettes, and Getting to Get Him to the Greek runs 32 minutes, seven seconds. It offers remarks from Stoller, Hill, Brand, Moss, Byrne, Rothman, producers Judd Apatow and David Bushell, stunt coordinator Jeff Dashnaw, background coordinator Bob Riley, set PA Cate Eckenrode, stunt double Keith Davis, property master Sean Mannion, and actors Sean Combs and Jessica Ellerby.

“Getting” covers the project’s development, story and characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, and stunts. “Getting” fails to become an especially concise production overview, but it includes enough behind the scenes footage to deserve a look.

Getting in Tune with the Greek spans 13 minutes, 47 second and brings notes from Stoller, Apatow, Brand, Byrne, Rothman, Hill, Combs, music supervisor Jonathan Karp, and songwriters Lyle Workman, Jason Segel, Mike Viola and Dan Bern.

Here we get notes about the movie’s songs. Expect some good insights.

Finally, The Making of “African Child” fills six minutes, 26 seconds and provides a “mockumentary” shot by “Aldous Snow”. It becomes an amusing extra, though it does include a few actual production specifics as well.

Under “Music”, we find a bunch of materials, and we locate five music videos. This means clips for “African Child”, “I Am Jesus”, “Ring ‘Round”, “Supertight” and “Just Say Yes”.

As expected, these provide longer versions of videos seen partially during the film. They’re consistently entertaining.

With The Greek Concert, we get two domains: “1999” (2 songs, 6:35) and “2009” (3 songs, 11:36). Both show performances intended to come from the shows in question. As with the videos, we see parts of these in the movie, but it’s fun to view longer versions.

Three excerpts from TV shows shot for the film follow: Today Show (3:04), VH1 Storytellers (3:22) and World Tour (3:48). These bring extended editions of what we view in the final flick and they become welcome additions.

“Music” concludes with London O2 Concert, three more live songs that occupy a total of 11 minutes. These show that the filmmakers shot Greek material at a Brand concert, and we get bonus performances from Jason Segel and Jack Black.

Disc One concludes with Karaoke, a domain that replicates the content from “Music” and adds onscreen lyrics. That does little for me but maybe someone will like it.

A standard-def DVD, Disc Two opens with a Gag Reel. Split into two parts, it spans 10 minutes, 18 seconds and mostly contains the usual goofs/giggles.

However, some alternate lines add fun. I also like Sean Combs’ eternal struggles to record “clean versions” of dialogue.

Line-O-Rama runs nine minutes, 11 seconds and presents the usual slew of alternate jokes. Plenty of amusing material results, especially from Aziz Ansari and Nick Kroll.

Tons of cut footage follows, as we get Alternate Intro (5:52), Alternate Ending (3:17), 17 Deleted Scenes (18:19) and 22 Extended/Alternate Scenes (35:45).

With the “Intro”, we see the toxic Aldous/Jackie relationship and what took Aldous back to booze and shenanigans after a period of sobriety. It’s interesting but a bit more serious than the movie needed at its start.

The “Ending” also creates a finale that adds some drama as well as a song that feels like a dig at Aaron. It doesn’t work.

As for the Deleted/Extended/Alternate scenes, you’ll find absolutely nothing that adds real narrative or character content. However, you will discover plenty of entertaining footage.

Did any of this need to make the final cut? A short Alanis Morissette cameo would’ve been a nice addition, but the eliminated material feels pretty superfluous. Still, I find it enjoyable to view these clips as bonus materials.

Blind Medicine goes for two minutes, 31 seconds and presents the entire intro to the fictional TV series briefly viewed in the movie. This seems fun, though the fact Ricky Schroeder has gotten bonkers over the last decade makes it weird to seem him act for laughs.

Under Interviews. we get four segments: “The One Show” (3:14), “MTV” (4:00), “The Today Show” (3:59) and “The View” (6:49). These offer full versions of in-character snippets seen in the final film. That means they feel more like deleted scenes than anything else, and they’re consistently enjoyable.

Finally, Auditions presents five clips: “Rose Byrne” (4:35), “Elisabeth Moss” (3:28), “Nick Kroll” (2:40), “Aziz Ansari” (2:28) and “TJ Miller” (4:35). These give us a cool glimpse of the casting process.

A spin-off from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek never connects like it should. Despite a few funny moments, the movie ultimately feels too long and too devoid of inspiration. The Blu-ray brings generally positive picture and audio along with a slew of bonus materials. Though not a poor film, Greek disappoints.