Since leaving the station in 2005 with “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” the Judd Apatow laugh-locomotive has not only steamed past the competition, but plowed it right off the tracks like so many wayward cows. Apatow’s style was initially hailed as a reinvention of big screen comedy, bravely injecting real heart, character, honesty and intellect (with hearty helpings of depreciated masculinity) into a genre that had devolved into a parade of insipid romedies and vapid pop parodies with little in between. That “Judd Apatow feeling” has rolled right along through—get this—13 releases in less than three years. Take that, Woody Allen.

No small achievement, to be sure. The Judd must sense how unnaturally fast he’s bulleting along the arc of a modern creative life cycle, where a fresh new approach grows into a brand and becomes a formula that can quickly slide into tired, self-conscious dogma. Next stop: cultural inconsequence.

It’s quite telling that Apatow’s team would select Huey Lewis, most famous for his 1980s hit “I Want a New Drug,” to perform the theme song for its latest effort. Their system certainly appears to have run its course and is jonesing for something novel to keep things shaking. After so many hits in so short a span, how long can any machine keep up such a pace without stopping for some munchies?

Hear that whistle blowin’? That’s “Pineapple Express” coming smokin’ ’round the bend.

Overworked metaphors aside, the Pineapple Express of the film is not a train, but a new strain of particularly potent uber-weed. This MacGuffin (or in this case, let’s call it the MacHuffin) is presented with reverence and hushed tones as the holy grail of true smokeheads. It’s described as a mythical, mystical bionic chronic, the smoking of which, we’re told, is tantamount to killing a unicorn.

Enter our heroes: Dale, a Yogi-ish, nowhere-going process server (Seth Rogen), and Saul, his glazed-over, Ramen-brained, otherwise unemployed dealer (James Franco), who’s just come into a stash of the killer blaze.

Smoking up on his way to deliver a subpoena to a “Ted” across town, Dale witnesses a brutal execution-style killing at the house he’s meant to visit. One of the shooters is a well-heeled drug tsar (played with grinning delight by a skeletal, leathery Gary Cole), the other a clearly corrupt copstress (Rosie Perez). In a screaming  panic fit to escape unseen, Dale smashes her cruiser and drops his Pineapple spliff out the car’s window. Rare as it is, it takes the drug lord one sniff to deduce its source. Bloodhound thugs are dispatched and the chase is on.

The script goes to great lengths to demonstrate that our hapless main duo weren’t born stupid—they’ve elected to make themselves stupid. And, though having next to nothing in common past their dedication to living life, let’s say, on the greener side of the fence, it turns out that mutual paranoia can make for fast friendships. Think Jay and Silent Bob from Kevin Smith’s Askewniverse, only with four times the “j” and with violence in place of silence.

It’s here that we discover the new spice Apatow’s crew is throwing into the recipe: Violence. Aggression. Open, angry, volatile male hostility. Lots of it. And some female hostility, too. And parental hostility. Ashtrays crack over heads, heads go through walls, guns are strapped and ninjas (yes, ninjas) are fought. Damning all stereotypes of stoners as noddy music-loving peacenicks, there’s a distinct concern by the end of the second act that they might kill themselves before the killers get a chance.

Unlike the Three Stoogified slapstick of “Step Brothers” (another Apatow joint), cars are wrecked, limbs are broken, eyes are gouged, ears are shot off—and all with an uncomfortably brutal, real-life desperation. At one point, Saul’s effeminate, yellowbellied dealer Red (who demonstrates loyalty the same way a goldfish demonstrates memory) is shot in the gut by the enforcers while duct taped to a wheelchair, and it’s just not funny, at all. It becomes a little funnier when we find out that not only does he survive, but that he goes on to absorb four or five more grievous wounds and just keeps on rolling. But it’s a long, bloody drive to that last punchline. The fights are occasionally hilarious, in a Gilley’s-after-midnight kind of way, but, in exactly the same way, still a little disturbing.

Scary though it becomes, and with a score of sloppily braided plotlines bogarted from a dozen other movies (“The Man Who Knew Too Little,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Midnight Run” and Pulp Fiction,” are all on clear display) that simply unravels by the explosive, action-packed climax, it’s nice to see the old crew reaching for something a little afield of its usual formula. Though their strength still undoubtedly lies in writing smart, character-driven banter and drawing side-splitting performances from actors (Danny McBride is a special joy to watch as the slippery turncoat Red), it’s a shade disconcerting that this team would trade in its authenticity for a base of blood, bullets and badassery.

Again, Apatow’s creative team has delivered a few hearty belly laughs, but framed by little forethought or apparent care for the dozen characters the film introduces. There may be a case here to worry about Apatow’s tendancy to swing at every pitch he’s thrown. Perhaps one solid, well-developed movie a year would serve us all better than four that are merely adequate.