The premise of this comedy from the people behind “The 40 Year Old Virgin” is a simple one: what if a woman got pregnant after a one night stand? “Knocked Up” succeeds because it examines this from all points of view - the underachieving, immature guy, the overachieving, successful woman, his even lazier friends and her disapproving family members - and does so with an incredibly high laugh quotient. This might sound like hyperbole after my glowing review of “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” but “Knocked Up” is better. It is a tighter movie with more consistent laughs.

Seth Rogen stars as Ben, a guy who has been coasting through his life. He meets Alison (Katherine Heigl) at a club after she gets a promotion. They get drunk, hook up and then don’t see each other again for two months, after Alison finds out she is pregnant. The soon to be parents decide to have the baby and give their relationship another try, but are their differences too much to overcome? No spoilers here - you’ll have to see this to find out.

Now for the long list of kudos. Rogen and Heigl are both terrific, but it is Rogen who carries the movie as an amiable lead. He has great comedic chops and his timing and delivery of some lines in the film are just classic. There are several scenes where he gets to partner up with Paul Rudd, his compadre from “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” and those scenes are just hilarious. Leslie Mann plays Rudd’s controlling wife Debbie and also gets a lot of solid screen time and laughs. What I loved most about this movie is that the laughs aren’t coming from contrived and awkward circumstances, but rather from the characters and their relationships. One running gag involving a roommate and yearlong bet delivers more laughs than the entire running time of “Epic Movie.”

Writer and director Judd Apatow deserves a ton of credit. Not only has he proven himself to be a comedic force in the film industry with his work on this film and “Virgin,” but he has also worked on films like “Anchorman,” and “Talladega Nights,” and the underrated television shows “Undeclared,” “Freaks and Geeks,” and “The Ben Stiller Show,” to name just a few. The guy knows funny and he has never sold out on his idea of making people laugh. He believes, and has proven, that if you have a multi-dimensional character and surround him with other well thought out characters, the comedic possibilities are endless. There may be a few cheap laughs here and there in his films, but they are few and far between.

Now, a disclaimer. This movie has some naughty language (really naughty language - like a Scorcese movie amount) and there are adult themes throughout, but it is a movie for adults. This isn’t “American Pie,” it isn’t for 15 year olds - although I’m sure they’d find it funny - it is for people who have gone through a similar situation or know people who have.

****

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