Superbad

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Summary:
Two best friends are about to finish high school, so they go on a quest for booze and babes, with many complications during their adventure.

Review:
I like to think that I'm not getting too old for this kinda shit. I like crude humor, and look forward to some great comedies for the laughs brought on by nasty talk, and perhaps even nastier onscreen antics. It's too bad that for me, this wasn't a fun ride along the lines of Super Trooper. What I got instead was a mediocre, and overlong teenage comedy that didn't insult my sensibilities more than hurt my heart for not tickling my funny bone.

I'm definitely in the minority with this flick, but I found Superbad to not be that great. I recall few moments in which I had been given a fresh approach to an age old slew of exceedingly worn out teenage comedy scenarios. I don't mind that the movie centers around three youngsters who are looking for a way to score some booze for a party, mostly because they believe getting drunk and getting girls drunk will get them laid. Part of my problem is that my moral sensibilities kind of take over ever so slightly in this department. I never drank in high school, went to parties where there was plenty of drinking, but was always a DD or just walked around and saw people be really stupid. I never got the concept of the "coolness" of underage drinking. On top of that, I never ever found it appealing when a chick tried to show me that she'd be willing to go to bed with me and she hardly ever knew me. It just tells me that I need to find someone smarter and more intellectually intriguing than her. I say these things, because this movie is all about looking for loose women and getting drunk, both while barely 18. I can't really associate with these guys, mostly because I never respected people like that when I was in high school. At least, I never respected those peoples' actions.
I am happy to see Michael Cera on the big screen, because he was hilarious in Arrested Development (if you haven't seen that series, I highly recommend it). It's like George Michael is back a couple years later here, with the same kind of personality. He's the more level headed of the two, who tries to anchor our acceptance of these two guys with talking about respecting the girl he likes, and getting mad at Seth for constantly talking nasty about any girl he mentions. Thing is, they are SO different from each other in this respect that I don't understand why Evan would spend so much time with Seth, because they have such different views on something that is apparently so important to both of them.
I am willing to not even CARE about these guys as long as the adventure of their search for booze is a fun and funny one. That's Superbad's biggest flaw. Sure, there's plenty of talk about dicks, hand jobs, blow jobs, alcohol, more sex talk, loose women, looking to FIND loose women... but it's recycled dirty talk that got old before it was even mentioned. I also didn't understand "McLovin" and his whole nightly fiasco with the local police. Yeah, sure the initial introduction between him and the cops was kinda funny, but everything after that felt strained. I really HATED these two cops, not just because they aren't funny like the Super Trooper gang, but they are just as corrupt - if not more so. On top of that, I also get a little sensitive when it comes to drunk people driving (which I mentioned a bit in my review of Apatow's 40 Year Old Virgin, and it's even WORSE when drunk people are driving AND carrying a loaded gun in their hands. I can't think of a single thing that would make that funny to me.
After the hour and a half mark, I had a few spouts of sporadic laughter, but then I could really feel that last act dragging its feet. Not laughing much in a comedy helps make the movie feel slower, and then having a long running last third doesn't help one's buttocks in the theater feel so relaxed. I was more than ready for the movie to end, and even considered walking out. I didn't, I stayed until the final credit rolled.

If it wasn't for the two leads being very capable and energetic actors, I don't think I could have bared watching Superbad. Even the ultimate result of presenting the value of friendship and respect over booze and sex did not redeem this movie's biggest faults, which were not enough laughs compounded with my own personal issue of them capitalizing on EVERY thing about high school raunchy comedies that I have the least patience for. A movie like this will probably be widely accepted and loved, especially with the 14-22 year olds who will feel like it's an autobiographical account of their own booze-addled lives. For me, I would rather a movie like this either be exponentially funnier than this, or just never be made any more at all.
Superbad wasn't so bad that it warrants such a title, but it's not that great, either.

GRADE: C-

Reviewed 8/29/07