Movie Review: Superbad
Superbad (2007)–**1/2
Superbad is certainly funny, uproariously so at times. In fact, the first 15 minutes of the film are a pleasant surprise, with pop culture references that would make Kevin Smith salivate and just enough raunch to counteract the smart dialogue. Once those 15 minutes are over, however, it’s a long way to the end of the Judd Apatow-produced teen comedy.
The film follows three teen misfits who have spent high school on the sidelines until finally deciding to get in the game during their last week as seniors. But Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) aren’t just looking to get a little bit of action. They are trying to start their summer on a high note, as it will be the last one they spend together before the longtime friends are separated by college.
With the help of the tragically unhip Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse ), who manages to get a fake I.D. (a Hawaiian license with the name McLovin’), the pair plan to provide a party with some adult beverages. Their hope is the girls they want to have sex with will be drunk enough to actually have sex with them. Sure cops, cars and hobos all stand in the way, but the biggest obstacle is the knowledge that, in a few months, they will be going in different directions.
It’s not that Superbad isn’t slightly sweet like the Apatow-directed films Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It’s not that the film isn’t the immature funny producer Apatow has guided to near perfection in Talladega Nights. Superbad has the problem of being the first Apatow production to strike me as conventional.
The humor goes a long way, but most jokes barely go where no teen movie has gone before. (An exception of course the scene involving a “period stain,” but I won’t elaborate.) Shock value moments get less interesting when Evan and Seth become too bogged down in their own plot. The pair were the funniest when it was just them talking about Seth being the Orson Welles of sex. When they aren’t discussing similar topics, the teen comedy is on the level of American Pie.
Superbad should have been more like the Apatow television show Freaks and Geeks than an of the recent gross outs comedies I thought had been abandoned. Of course, it’s not just Apatow’s movie. Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) wrote the film with his childhood friend Evan Goldberg. It’s a script that they started writing when they were 14, and it has enough penis jokes to prove it. The pair certainly have the knack for comedy, especially writer/actor Rogen, who turns the film’s cop subplot into something funnier than it was written to be. What Rogen and Goldberg establish here is they have the chops to pull off a comedy better than the one we get with Superbad.
Rogen and Goldberg already have another script (The Pineapple Express) being developed for a summer 2008 release. It, too, is produced by Judd Apatow. Without having a whole sub-genre of raunchy teen movies to compare to, that film may turn out to be more impressive than Superbad. Until then, just be thankful Superbad manages to be funny beyond the penis jokes.
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