As we end a sweaty summer and try to start the school year off right, a question lurks in the back of our spongy brains, ¡°What should be my last movie of the summer?¡±
Now, I¡¯m not telling you what to do here, but I demand that you see ¡®Superbad,; a sparkling gem in the murky realm of ¡°teen comedies.¡± A thin plot (get booze, get laid) gallops along following three high school nerds finishing their senior year and their noble quest to score booze for the end of the year party and hook up with their respective ladies of choice.
Seth and Evan are two college bound seniors finishing up the rest of their 4-year sentence. While Seth made it into the State University, Evan got accepted to the prestigious Dartmouth, which keeps a little friction pent up between the two, not to mention Evan will be rooming with Fogell, who would have been the most annoying kid in your graduating class. Yeah, that guy.
These three bottom feeders manage to overlook their minor issues when Seth gets invited to a sweet end of the year party hosted by his super-crush, Jules. Fogell miraculously happens to be getting his fake ID on the same exact day, so Seth, the gentleman that he is, offers to get alcohol for the entire party. After several awkward encounters, Evan manages to ask the love of his life, Becca, to the party and offers to pick her up a bottle.
With so much pressure riding on the three, they will stop at absolutely nothing to get their peers drunk and themselves laid.
The magic of this movie is surreal. First off, every single moment in the movie is a universal relapse back to the ¡°glory days¡± of bad acne, never fitting in, awkward encounters with the opposite sex, and being stupid AND drunk for the first time. So many times over the movie I caught myself thinking, ¡°Ohh yeah, I remember that.¡±
Second, the characters are very well developed, and the chemistry between the two protagonists, Evan and Seth, is especially strong. Instead of grabbing 20-something models and filling the stage with eye-candy, the movie was cast in a very ¡°normal¡± fashion, defining each character and setting them apart. Fogell added a lot of support to the trio but the dialogue between Evan and Seth is one of the defining points of the film.
The problem with ¡°Superbad¡± is that I was laughing so hard I usually missed something that a handful of people were laughing at after the majority of the crowd died down. Seth and Evan are hilarious, and if you¡¯re a fan of George Michael from ¡°Arrested Development¡± rest assured that Evan has some of the same awkward tendencies and mannerisms.
Glazing over the excellent writing, are some excellent cut scenes, either to the past or the characters imagination, and a plethora of the most creative and original dick jokes that I have ever heard. Not that these make a movie but they are definitely the icing on the high-school humor cake.
If you can handle the vulgar language, you are in for a treat. ¡°Superbad¡± is hands down one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time, especially when compared to most of the other crap under the ¡°teen-comedy¡± umbrella. Excellent writing, and great casting leaves no time for ¡°Superbad¡± to let you down, unless you are ¡°too mature¡± to laugh at weiner jokes. Then you will probably hate it.