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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Superbad

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#1 of 1 Posted 8/9/07 11:28 PM

From Harveycritic Posts 1632 Last Nov-2
To All [Msg # 22575.1 ]

SUPERBAD

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Columbia Pictures
Grade: A-
Directed by:    Greg Mottola
Written By: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Cast:   Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen
Screened at: AMC Lincoln Square, NYC, 8/9/07
Opens: August 17, 2007

I’d like ten bucks for every guy about my age in the audience of “Superbad” who’s thinking, “I was born too early.” If you went to high school in the 1950s, you’re out of luck. Wait till your next life and hope that everyone learns from that disastrous, uptight decade. If you’re going to high school today and if the school is anything like the one featured in Greg Mottola’s movie, you’re to be envied, though if you can’t identify with any of the delightful losers portrayed here (and without exception every male below the age of 30 is), you’re in trouble. You need to get out more often. I’m not sure you’ll have confidence in the men and women in blue based on the way cops are shown, but cities suffering from a shortage of police could not produce a more enticing recruitment film. “Superbad,” the best broad comedy in years, topping even Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” and “The Forty Year Old Virgin,” may go on for a quarter hour too long, but is graced with actors who convincingly play people we’d like to have been (heartaches and all). This pic is a winner that would be the envy of Aristophanes, the father of comedy–who also had a way with evoking laughter as priapic actors pranced about the stage while ordinary people carried giant dildoes in festivals honoring Dionysus.

Produced by Judd Apatow, “Superbad” stars three teenage boys with distinct personalities, allegedly mirrors of co-writer Seth Rogen’s own high-school days in Vancouver. Rogen, a Renaissance man in that he not only starred in Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” but also has a riotously funny featured role in “Superbad,” should dispel anyone’s notion of writers as dorks who resemble Anthony Hopkins’s character in “Slipstream,” set to open shortly, about an aging movie scriptwriter who dozes off throughout the story and whose good times are merely reminisces that come to him when in a soporific state. Here, actor Bill Hader and writer Seth Rogen perform in the roles of cop partners, Officer Slater and Officer Michaels respectively, who, while having tons of fun on the job, show a geeky teenage high-school senior, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse),the greatest night of his life. Nor does it hurt that Fogell’s best friends are Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera)–obviously named for writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and meant to be in part a re-creation of their own fun- and anxiety-filled high-school years.

The action takes place on a single day in and around a single city, Los Angeles. An overweight, extroverted Seth and a slim, inner-directed Evan have been best friends since childhood, vowing to room together when they get to college. Both are eighteen-year-old virgins, shunned by the hip kids in the school, making them even more obsessed with sex than those who presumably have less trouble getting it on with the girls. A third teen, Fogell, is so dorky that he is virtually excluded even by Seth and Evan, but an opportunity arises that allows Fogell to bond with the two and permits all three teens to gain access to a major party thrown by one girl, Jules (Emma Stone), whose parents will be away and who need one of the boys to use a false I.D. to buy liquor. The major segment of the almost two-hour comedy deals with the efforts of the boys to score the liquor, a seemingly Herculean task that introduces Fogell–who has a fake Hawaiian driver’s license in the name of McLoven–to spend several hours with Keystone-style police officers Slater and Michaels.

The movie’s comedy revolves around a series of broadly acted scenes, each trying to top the previous one for hilarity. One situation finds Seth in a liquor store contemplating the theft of some bottles, but hesitating after experiencing scary fantasies of what would happen if he were caught. Another has the boys forcibly ejected from a party of men and women several years older than they, with Jonah’s suffering extreme embarrassment after dancing with one of the sexually assertive women. Throughout, editor William Kerr demonstrates a perfect pitch for coming timing, cutting between scenes involving Fogell’s wild adventures with the police officers and Seth and Evan’s interplay with each other and with the young women. A police car is torched for fun, a weird, uninvited party guest gets beaten to a pulp; but the violence is all in fun. The trio of teens that we have grown to care are days away from high-school graduation and the opening of new obligations and broader friendships. They experience a night to remember. And so do we in the audience.

Rated R.   112 minutes   © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Superbad

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