CrankyÕs
Flickershow Reviews
By Neil Richter
SuperbadÉyeah right.
Talk about
a complete misnomer. Superbad just might be the best teen sex comedy of the last
decade or so. If Animal House was The Godfather to these types of movies, then Superbad is Goodfellas—more graphic, more fearless, and way
funnier. Superbad takes chances that its predecessors didnÕt, including
a gross-out gag involving the only bodily discharge not to be utilized in a sex
comedy up until this point. In
short, itÕs a shot of pure adrenalin into a tired premise.
Allow me to
set aside my gushing for a few minutes in order to take a closer look at the
framework of the film. For the
remainder of this review, I will be purposefully vague so as not to spoil any
of the jokes. (Including the ones the previews as well as other reviewers have
already spoiled) High school buddies Seth and Evan are facing separation
anxiety due to the onset of college.
They spend one wild night together, the last before graduation, trying
to secure booze for a party, a party in which they hope to intercept the
(hopefully) drunken girls of their respective dreams. To achieve this end, they enlist Fogel, the nerd to end all
nerds, on account of the fake I.D. that he has recently secured. From here on out, things donÕt go as
planned. ThatÕs it. Like many teen films before it, Superbad relies on the Ôone wild nightÕ premise, limiting
itself to a 24 hour time-frame, and a brief coda taking place the morning
after. In short, even the set up
has been done hundreds of times before.
Think American Graffiti. Think Dazed and Confused. Hell,
think CanÕt Hardly Wait. My underlying point here is that the
magic of Superbad cannot be easily
categorized. The jokes are just as
sophomoric and scatological as you might expect, perhaps even moreso, but time
and again they hit the comedic bullseye with an accuracy that is nothing short
of frightening. The entire
production seems somewhat rambling and slapped together as the boys stumble
from one adventure to another. There
were many times when I stared at the screen agape, wondering why on GodÕs green
earth I was laughing so hard at a joke IÕve heard different variations of
hundreds of times before. However,
for every time I had that reaction, there were a dozen other moments that
blindsided me with their boldness and originality.
Much of
this must be attributed to the young cast. I could go on and on about what is wonderful about each
performance. However, that would
quickly become redundant. While
Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Seth and Fogel) are brilliant in their
own right, I only have the space to single out one actor. That would invariably be Michael
Cera. His Evan is one of the more
believable high school-aged characterizations to come down the pike in quite
awhile. It helps that Cera is
himself a teenager (Jonah Hill is actually in his 20Õs) so his look is
completely right for the youth of the part. Furthermore, Cera has been developing his singular comedic
persona for quite some time now.
Just look at his work on the highly acclaimed series Arrested
Development for proof of this. Cera is the real deal. Some of the funniest moments in Superbad are his nonverbal reactions to everything that goes
on around him. This guy makes
answering a cell phone look funny.
He makes running look funny.
He makes riding a bus look funny.
While most would-be comedians his age use wild mannerisms and
over-the-top behavior to get laughs, Cera simply moves his eyes in a certain
way, or adds the slightest pause to one of his lines. Wherein most comedians take a shovel-to-the-face approach to
an audience, Cera utilizes a scalpel.
There are hundreds of adult comedians out there who, after years and
years of work on the comedy circuit, have yet to understand the subtle rhythms
that Cera taps into here. The man
is a surgeonÉthe end.
As I
gradually run out of space, I feel a pang of guilt for not giving a shoutout to
Seth Rogan, the man who helped create Superbad, in addition to playing one of two dangerously intoxicated
police officers in the film. How
long will it take for him to be noticed by Hollywood? As the right hand man to certified comedic GENIUS Judd
Apatow, he has helped bring us projects as diverse as Freaks and Geeks (in my opinion the bestÉthingÉin any mediumÉabout teenagers.), as well as the
recent megahits The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. With SuperbadÕs inevitable success, I think olÕ Seth is going to be
getting a lot more work outside of Apatow and co.
One last
thing. My love for this film is
not simply based on laughter. Yes,
I appreciated the many well-rounded and downright Shakespearean jokes regarding
human genitalia. Yes, I loved the
wanton property damage and overall irresponsible behavior on display. However, what really struck a chord
with me was the realism. The
emotions bubbling under the surface of this film are painfully genuine, and
often not very funny at all. The
transition period between the teen years and young adulthood is a tough
time. Superbad knows this with a vulgar eloquence that sets the bar
very, very high for future teen films.
Most movies varnish over this with cheap, invented scenarios. Superbad lives in it.
It knows what its like to truly embarrass yourself in front of the
opposite sex. Not cute little
sitcom stutters, IÕm talking absolute humiliation. It knows what its like to feel that alcohol is the only
thing that will make you cooler, or more charming, or better, only to have
those assumptions blasted away into shameful, bleary-eyed oblivion. It knows what its like to cover your
fears of the future with vulgar jokes and misplaced aggression. In short, Superbad conveys all the horrors and joys of youth in a way
that few films have. Oh, and it
also has some great jokes about the male sex organ.
8/30/07