Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I've changed my mind ... there IS something wrong with that: "Superbad"

Kidding! I love gay people. Well, I don't love them. Wait ... I'm not a homophobe. Wait ... oh, never mind.

I laughed mightily at the trailer for "Superbad" a few months back -- love that kid from "Arrested Development" -- and the generally good reviews added to my desire to see the teen comedy when it hit theaters last month. So when I found myself with a little spare time Tuesday in Phoenix before a redeye flight home, I decided to catch this movie and then grab a double-double at In-N-Out Burger. Those are good burgers, Dude.

Our story follows two geeky kids, Michael Cera (from AD) and Jonah Hill (the tubby kid who wanted to buy the shoes in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"), at the end of their senior year in high school. They're gearing up for their last summer before going to different colleges, with Hill obsessed about getting regular sex with a girl (or so he says) before going away. How to do so? Why, buy alcohol for a party where hot girls will be drunk. Genius! Thank YOU!!!

In the words of Aristotle, "Hijinks ensue." Our heroes enlist their even geekier friend (someone named Christoper Mintz-Plasse) to buy the alcohol, but he gets shanghaied by a couple of oddball cops (Seth Rogen, also one of the co-writers, and Bill Hader), leaving the dynamic duo to find other avenues for alcohol. Suffice it to say, their misadventures take them all over town before landing at the party, where things don't go as expected, either.

To nobody's surprise, there's a wee bit of raunchiness in these proceedings; one person is credited as "Period Blood Girl." (Yikes.) That didn't bother me. Some of it was funny, some of it was just there. And the performances by and large were good. Hill looks too old to be in high school -- he's about 24, or two years younger than Rogen -- but Cera is pretty winning. Neither was as hilarious as Mintz-Plasse, though, who eats up his role and enjoys the best transformation of anyone in "Superbad."

No, my problem with this movie is that it starts out strong and has funny scenes throughout but ... there's the we're-not-gay-but-just-close thing. No, nobody's goes "Brokeback" here. Nothing overt at all. But the whole best friends thing between our heroes, while well-intentioned and meant to genuinely show how much these guys love each other, is quite distracting.

It's weird. You've got these guys talking about girls, watching porn, wanting to get drunk. But you've also got all these episodes showing the bond between the guys, and it just didn't quite work. Even the final scene, where the boys are riding high, you still get this longing glance and weirdness. I don't know, maybe it was just me. I have no problem with the idea. I just don't think it went right.

In the end, that doesn't take away from a generally entertaining movie. There's the whole "McLovin" thing, and rest assured I'll never listen to "These Eyes" the same way again. Plenty of other really funny stuff here, too. And hey, great dick drawings. Yes, I said dick drawings. You'll have to see for yourself.

1 Comments:

At 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Almost p*ssed my pants laughing so hard at the dick drawings and his back story. Ahh, the memories of trying anything to get booze while in high school.

 

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