Amy Schumer has been on the slow rise to stardom over the last few years. From her appearance on “The Last Comic Standing” to her work on the Comedy Central roasts, she now has made a big name for herself. Many know her from her Emmy award winning show “Inside Amy Schumer,” others from her movie “Trainwreck,” which she stared in and wrote, yet there are those who know her solely for her stand up.

“Amy Schumer Live at the Apollo” premiered Oct. 17 on HBO. It is her second big special, the first being Comedy Central’s “Mostly Sex Stuff.” The special was good, but it was the typical level Schumer has become known for.

A lot of Schumer’s humor can be seen as her attacking herself, which was made apparent from the beginning of the set when she talked about her need to lose weight for the film at the studio’s demand. Although a good look at Hollywood’s standard of women, there wasn’t much to the joke that made the audience go crazy. It mainly had intermediate laughs here and there.

A joke that did incredibly well was one she told about the movie “Zookeeper” with Kevin James (“Here Comes the Boom”) and Rosario Dawson (“Sin City”). The premise of that joke was that Dawson was the girl who would look at James from a far and want to be with him and how unbelievable that was.

“That movie’s about talking animals,” Schumer said. “There’s a beaver and a penguin that are friends and talk about opening a bed and breakfast, but that’s not the most unrealistic part of that movie.”

The audience loved it and it was a nice change of pace from her typical style of humor.
Another joke that kept audiences excited is her one about deaf people. Although the jabs she makes at the deaf culture aren’t “PC,” their quick paced nature and delivery had the audience laughing.

A lot of the special was surprisingly more about empowerment than comedy. Many of the jokes were about the ideas of people not being strong enough or people having a negative self-image and the ideas of body image and sexual harassment that still occur. These are the jokes that may not have gotten a big reaction, but left viewers thinking. One of the biggest reactions came from, “dance like no one’s watching, why don’t you dance like a few people are watching.”

Yet Schumer ends on her signature style, talking about different positions people can use in the bedroom and how they are more focused on men then they are women. Her final punch line falls slightly flat, but she manages still to get a large reaction from the crowd as she ends.

The special was good. If you are a fan of Schumer, you will enjoy watching. Yet it was nothing great. Schumer can continue to develop and work on her voice as a comedian. A comic’s work is never done; they always must try to one up themselves and Schumer should have too much difficulty doing that in a different special.

Rating: 3 out of 5