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These boys are crude, lewd, but oh, so hilarious, dude
By Rich Heldenfels
Akron Beacon Journal
Published on Friday, Aug 17, 2007
When laying an R rating on high-school comedy Superbad, the Motion Picture Association of America says it has ''pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image all involving teens.''
All true. But here's what the MPAA left out:
It is very, very funny.
And all that content leads to a point where all that crudity is put in a context of love and friendship, of romance and kindness, that says all the raunchy talk is cover for the characters' longing for a deeper and more powerful emotional life.
Superbad is American Graffiti for a new generation. Less self-consciously important than the earlier film, it is still very much about what can happen to young people facing the transition to adulthood. And, like Graffiti, it wraps up that transition in the often outrageous events of a single tumultuous night.
Also, it's very, very funny.
It is, in fact, the latest triumph from writer-producer-director Judd Apatow here just the producer and especially actor-writer Seth Rogen.
Rogen starred in Apatow's summer hit Knocked Up and co-wrote Superbad (with Evan Goldberg). He also plays a supporting role as the sort of police officer a teenager can only dream about encountering.
The script follows two kids named, aptly, Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) trying to break out of high school's social purgatory and into the ranks of cool kids. Or, at least of kids who can score with girls.
To accomplish that, they need to provide booze for a party. But when they set out to do that accompanied by their even geekier friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) things do not remotely go the way the guys expect.
Even what seems like a happy ending for Evan proves to be different from what he had hoped. In the end, Evan and Seth have more than one epiphany, not only about what they want but who they are.
Because it can't be said often enough, this is a crude movie. (If you want a more polite view of high-school life, stay at home tonight and watch High School Musical 2.) It is crude in large measure because the characters, especially Seth, speak and think crudely, and because they spend the night wandering into even more sordid settings. (Director Greg Mottola is quite happy to make most of the Superbad world look seedy.)
But it is funny-crude, and funny-gross. There's one joke involving a dance partner that I can't begin to describe here. Just when you think it can't get any wilder, it does.
And it gets away with a lot of things because Hill, Cera and the unfailingly cheerful Mintz-Plasse are so very good. Hill's abrasiveness is always accompanied by a sense of desperation and humiliation that makes him understandable. As he did on Arrested Development, Cera knows how to say one thing or fail to say one thing while revealing infinitely more in a sad, pained expression.
As for Mintz-Plasse, he is the breakout star in the movie, not only as a geek but as a geek redefined thanks to a fake ID naming him McLovin. And just McLovin.
Thanks to the performances and the script, the movie strikes very few false notes when it comes to the characters; you will buy into almost all of them as real people. Even the most implausible, a team of police officers played by Rogen and Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader, have little flourishes that make them recognizably human.
The only problem comes late in the film, when Seth and Evan have to learn their lessons. It's a little too tidy, especially in a day-after scene. But the sentimental part of me liked to have that scene. And Superbad does have that sentimental side after it has made you explode with laughter.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
When laying an R rating on high-school comedy Superbad, the Motion Picture Association of America says it has ''pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image all involving teens.''
All true. But here's what the MPAA left out:
It is very, very funny.
And all that content leads to a point where all that crudity is put in a context of love and friendship, of romance and kindness, that says all the raunchy talk is cover for the characters' longing for a deeper and more powerful emotional life.
Superbad is American Graffiti for a new generation. Less self-consciously important than the earlier film, it is still very much about what can happen to young people facing the transition to adulthood. And, like Graffiti, it wraps up that transition in the often outrageous events of a single tumultuous night.
Also, it's very, very funny.
It is, in fact, the latest triumph from writer-producer-director Judd Apatow here just the producer and especially actor-writer Seth Rogen.
Rogen starred in Apatow's summer hit Knocked Up and co-wrote Superbad (with Evan Goldberg). He also plays a supporting role as the sort of police officer a teenager can only dream about encountering.
The script follows two kids named, aptly, Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) trying to break out of high school's social purgatory and into the ranks of cool kids. Or, at least of kids who can score with girls.
To accomplish that, they need to provide booze for a party. But when they set out to do that accompanied by their even geekier friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) things do not remotely go the way the guys expect.
Even what seems like a happy ending for Evan proves to be different from what he had hoped. In the end, Evan and Seth have more than one epiphany, not only about what they want but who they are.
Because it can't be said often enough, this is a crude movie. (If you want a more polite view of high-school life, stay at home tonight and watch High School Musical 2.) It is crude in large measure because the characters, especially Seth, speak and think crudely, and because they spend the night wandering into even more sordid settings. (Director Greg Mottola is quite happy to make most of the Superbad world look seedy.)
But it is funny-crude, and funny-gross. There's one joke involving a dance partner that I can't begin to describe here. Just when you think it can't get any wilder, it does.
And it gets away with a lot of things because Hill, Cera and the unfailingly cheerful Mintz-Plasse are so very good. Hill's abrasiveness is always accompanied by a sense of desperation and humiliation that makes him understandable. As he did on Arrested Development, Cera knows how to say one thing or fail to say one thing while revealing infinitely more in a sad, pained expression.
As for Mintz-Plasse, he is the breakout star in the movie, not only as a geek but as a geek redefined thanks to a fake ID naming him McLovin. And just McLovin.
Thanks to the performances and the script, the movie strikes very few false notes when it comes to the characters; you will buy into almost all of them as real people. Even the most implausible, a team of police officers played by Rogen and Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader, have little flourishes that make them recognizably human.
The only problem comes late in the film, when Seth and Evan have to learn their lessons. It's a little too tidy, especially in a day-after scene. But the sentimental part of me liked to have that scene. And Superbad does have that sentimental side after it has made you explode with laughter.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
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