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Superbad
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| Year: |
2007
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Director: |
Greg Mottola
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| Stars: |
Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen, Martha MacIsaac, Emma Stone, Aviva, Joe Lo Truglio, Kevin Corrigan, Clement Blake, Erica Vittina Phillips, Joe Nunez, Dave Franco, Marcella Lentz-Pope, Scott Gerbacia, Laura Seay
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| Genre: |
Comedy |
| Rating: |
  5 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Seth (Jonah Hill) is driving over to the house of his best friend Evan (Michael Cera), but even though he is nearly there cannot wait to speak to him face to face and so phones him up instead. He informs him of his plans to register for a porn website, and he thinks he has found the right one, but Evan points out that he his parents will still see the phone bill so it's best to pick one with an innocuous name. Seth and Evan are still at school, but only for two more weeks whereupon they will be parted because each is going to a different university. With time running out, there's not many days left to enjoy their company...
When Superbad was a hit, many were reminded of the comedies of the past: no, not Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers, but Porky's and Animal House. Maybe they were forgetting the success of the likes of American Pie and Road Trip, which had won the same accolades around ten years before, but it's true there was a sense of history about the film. Mainly the personal history of the screenwriters, Seth Rogen (who also acted here) and Evan Goldberg, who had based the plotline on the experiences of their shared youth (hence the character names).
There was another name connected to the project and that was of producer Judd Apatow, considered the saviour of American comedy about this time having overseen a collection of similarly sexually-themed hits, not that there was much sexual here except for the dialogue: the teenage boys are utterly obsessed with the subject. It's either that or securing alcohol that fills up their days, but nevertheless another theme to their existence, a theme they would not readily admit, makes itself plain. Yes, Superbad was a male bonding movie, with Seth and Evan's friendship what this movie was really about.
Indeed, the dewey-eyed treatment of the two main characters' relationship was what made the film rise a little above its peers, and there was genuine affection for the writers' schooldays and the friends they had here. Which went some way to papering over the fact that otherwise there was a serious lack of wit in the gags, and if they were opting for the percieved inanity of teenage conversation then it was hard to deny they had achieved their object. Too often the characters were allowed to ramble around and around in smutty circles with tiresome results and the novelty of hearing such near the knuckle talk was a shortlived one.
Against the odds, Seth and Evan are invited to a party held by the girl Seth has his eye on, Jules (Emma Stone), and the chance that they might lose their virginity is almost close enough to touch. But there's a problem: the boys have agreed to bring the drinks and so must fall back on their other friend, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who has promised to bring his new fake I.D. One of the running jokes is that the I.D. carries the name "McLovin", a highly unlikely title for the nerdy Fogell, though he ends up having the best night of the trio when he's picked up by two idiot cops (Rogen and Bill Hader). Despite all appearances, there is a message of responsibility here, so Evan does not take advantage of the inebriated Becca (Martha MacIsaac) when he could have done, and Seth messes up his chances through drinking too much. But really, Superbad seems as though the writers were drunk when they penned it, going from happy drunk to horny drunk to aggressive drunk to finally sentimental drunk before passing out at the end in a schmaltzy parting of the ways. Music by Lyle Workman.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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