Superbad

SUPERBAD hits you like a blast from the past. Not just in a nostalgic sense (for those of us no longer in high school) but for anyone who lived through the seventies. The creators of KNOCKED UP may have just given up the ultimate horny teen comedy, one that will assuredly bewilder and offend straight-minded types and have people under 30 rolling in the aisles everywhere. It’s a bawdy romp that holds nothing back, hitting you with underage drinking from all sides (those misfits!), endless illustrations a certain bodily organ, and reckless behavior from all involved. It is a perfect picture of irresponsibility, and it couldn’t be funnier.

Best friends Evan and Seth (likely named for the film’s writers, Evan Goldberg and co-star Seth Rogen) have only a few weeks left before high school graduation, and therefore are running out of time to snatch a summer girlfriend and have a special, alcohol-influenced late night encounter. Their opportunity arises when they are invited to a typical high school party (you know, just a few people, it’ll be fun…) and their geeky third wheel Fogel scores a fake I.D. with the already-renowned moniker “McLovin”. Charged with supplying the booze for the party, the rest of the film follows their misadventures in their quest to buy and deliver the alcohol. This includes storming a party with a sexual predator, several brawls and a few meetings with a pair of bored, yearning-for-the-past policemen, played with comic gusto by Bill Hader and Rogen.

Jonah Hill and Michael Cera play the sex-starved teenagers, both in a role that seems tailor made for them. Hill is a loud, volatile character, unafraid to ridicule his shape for the sake of comedy. Cera, as on TV’s “Arrested Development”, is the instantly likable dork; the kind you can’t help but root for. These are kids who liken their sexual life to Orson Welles’s film career; they’re not your typical teenage misfits. In his film debut, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as Fogel/McLovin) leaves viewers in an uproar from the first moment he arrives. From his sweaty panic attacks to his painfully awkward attempts at anything “hip”, he remains the epitome of the nerd.

Though the film is set in the present, its style clearly reaches back to the best and solid-colored of the 1970s. Every building looks as if it hasn’t been touched for 25 years, the soundtrack is a nostalgic mix, and the three main characters’ costumes are straight from Good Will. The film is awash with the kind of youthful exuberance that only high schoolers know; the sexually explicit comments made with no regard over who hears and the feeling that a sense of freedom ends, not begins, with graduation. While there is a fleeting moment of deeper thought when Seth and Evan appear to explore their relationship a bit more, it is all turned into comedy when the morning hangovers come around. In their search for sex and, just maybe, something a little more long-lasting, we are content to sit back and watch them work their way out of seemingly inescapable fates.

The film is crude and crass, and never makes any lies about it. If one is ready to accept that (and there will be those that won’t), SUPERBAD will be the funniest movie to come along in quite a while. Producer Judd Apatow has scored another home run that will become an instant classic to his target group; basically anyone who enjoys a good sex comedy. Even those a little hesitant to the genre will be won over by the film’s relentless pace and complete lack of restraint. The jokes come fast, getting dirtier each and every time. While some will shake their heads in disgust, there are those who will realize it for what it is and just let in happen. And in the process, they’ll laugh their heads off.

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