Yup, there’s a naked guy in new Apatow comedy

Does Judd Apatow have an agenda to bring full-frontal male nudity to the multiplex?

Well, all right, maybe not an agenda. But apparently the comedy mogul finds the male member funny. Or have you forgotten the unmotivated nudity in “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”? (If you had, my apologies for mentioning it.) In “Superbad,” the emphasis was purely graphic — as in, drawings.

In an early sequence in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” we have a classic break-up sequence played with the man buck-naked and the woman fully clothed. I think the idea is to push the boundaries of what an audience is comfortable with, and get them to laugh at the same time. I have to report that my preview audience didn’t so much laugh as sound very, very uncomfortable.

The man is Peter (no comments, please); he’s played by Jason Segel, from the TV show “How I Met Your Mother” and Apatow’s “Knocked Up.” Segel also wrote the screenplay for the film, so you decide whether he is inappropriately proud of his body or shrewd about the kind of nudity that looks comical.

The woman is Sarah (Kristen Bell, from “Veronica Mars”), a TV actress in a crime show indistinguishable from a hundred other crime shows. Kudos to William Baldwin, by the way, for his brilliantly macho line readings in clips from this show.

To drown his breakup sorrows, Peter heads off to a Hawaii resort. Funny thing: Sarah shows up at the same place, with her new boyfriend, a British singer called Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Awkward.

Hijinks, most of them mild, follow. Luckily, a soft-eyed hotel receptionist (Mila Kunis) is around to lend comfort — and applaud Peter’s plan to compose a rock opera based on “Dracula,” performed by puppets.

Apatow’s formula is followed by Segel and director Nicholas Stoller: schlubby hero, explicit sex talk, and supporting roles for company regulars such as Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill. There’s even an equivalent to McLovin in “Superbad,” a worn-out newlywed husband played by Jack McBrayer.

Also as usual, there’s an undercurrent of anguish and sweetness beneath the rude humor. I don’t think the mix works as well here as in, say, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” but a few surprises really help.

One surprise is Brit comedian Russell Brand, who isn’t well known in the States — but he will be after this. Aldous is hilariously self-obsessed, yet (much to Peter’s frustration), he keeps turning out to be a cool, honest guy.

Also, Mila Kunis, who cruised for years on “That ’70s Show,” has real movie appeal, a quiet approach that makes her seem wiser than her years. Well, at least wiser than the arrested-adolescent male embodied so well by Jason Segel. That’s the defining character type of the 21st century, and also happens to be the target audience for Hollywood movies. Get used to it.