ISN’T IT BROMANTIC? Jason Segel and Paul Rudd.

Soon after Sydney (Jason Segel) meets Peter (Paul Rudd), he diagnoses a problem: Peter needs a companion who will make him scream. So Sydney takes Pete under the Venice Beach boardwalk, and there they release their animal natures, bellowing into the surf. No, I am not making lewd suggestions: They just scream, and then they go eat corn dogs. The pop song on the soundtrack rises, and for a second its rhythm sounds like a distant drum circle.

At first blush, I Love You, Man is very much of its moment, the next step in a natural progression: It’s the Apatow-factory satellite that explicitly addresses the dude-crushes that have boiled not far under the fraternal surfaces of Superbad and Pineapple Express. But in its need to defend the sacred bond of bromance, this genial comedy harks back to another time: the early 1990s, the era of Iron John and male-bonding retreats, when a man was a man and hugged other men and was not embarrassed about this in any way, because finally he was unleashing the hunter-warrior that had been domesticated for too long. This was, in short, a stupid time.

And I Love You, Man is a stupid movie, though not without its compensations. High among them is Rudd, who downplays his gift for derision to play the easily flustered Peter, who gets engaged to Zooey (Rashida Jones) and realizes that he has no friends close enough to be his best man. Enter Sydney, who describes himself as an investment broker but is obviously self-employed as a chillaxation expert. Segel, last seen pink and naked in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is perfect for the role: His open face seems half-formed, like that of a fetus already addicted to Heineken and Internet porn. He reintroduces Peter to pleasures he had long forgotten: fish tacos, blunt talk and, most urgently, the music of Rush.

It is now a requirement for me to say something about how I Love You, Man reduces its female characters to two-dimensional figures, whose only role is to enable their boyfriends’ maturation. Consider me having said it. Meanwhile, the funniest thing in the movie, by far, is Jon Favreau as a man who frankly refuses to be Peter’s friend, and whose wordless face expresses infinite disgust with the childish self-actualization that interrupts his poker nights. I extend my sympathies. R.