| Review |
On the surface it may seem a strange thing to say, but Judd Apatow is like a modern-day John Hughes. After all, the current dean of Hollywood comedy (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up”), is thought of as cool and hip, while from a distance of some two decades Hughes is now remembered as rather sugary and bland. But the movies of both evince a special affinity for high school stories, and genuine affection for the outsiders—nerds, dweebs and geeks—populating that environment, treating them with a mixture of ridicule and sympathy that makes them seem to many viewers more rounded and human figures than the ones usually found in such campus tales. (Whether that’s true or not is, of course, a matter of debate.)
And both quickly branched out to become sponsors of proteges. Take “Superbad.” It’s produced by Apatow, and is reminiscent in many respects of his cult TV show “Freaks and Geeks” (as well as his other series “Undeclared”), but it’s co-written by Seth Rogen, the star of “Knocked Up,” who also appeared in the two TV series as well as “Virgin,” and who takes a major role in it. But though audiences may see this as something like a prequel to that current smash, it’s basically a reworking of John Hughes’s “Weird Science” without the science and Kelly LeBrock but with a far fouler mouth—a picture about horny high school buddies looking for romance who converse about as raunchily as the semi-grownup slackers of “Knocked Up.” It also appears to be a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy for Rogen and his writing partner (and old school chum) Evan Goldberg—not an autobiographical recollection, but a gonzo, movie-inspired riff on how they’d like to think their school days might have turned out (as a revenge of the nerds, to mention another cinematic source of inspiration).
That personal connection is clearly shown in the fact that the two about-to-graduate seniors in “Superbad” are named Seth (Jonah Hill, who was one of those slackers in the earlier picture) and Evan (Michael Cera). Seth is the overweight, oversexed, volatile motormouth—it’s no surprise that one of his preoccupations is deciding what porno site to subscribe to (and probably no accident that Ben, Rogen’s character in “Knocked Up,” is designing a web site devoted to nude scenes in movies). Evan, by contrast, is the Laurel to his Hardy—pleasantly goofy, amenable, nervously following his lead. Their goal before graduating and going off to college—separate colleges, actually, since Evan’s been accepted to Dartmouth and Seth hasn’t—is, of course, to make it with the girls they’re infatuated with (Emma Stone’s Jules for Seth, Martha MacIsaac’s Becca for Evan). But that depends on securing the liquor for a party Jules is throwing for the class.
And doing so brings their ubergeek buddy Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)—a much more extreme version of the kid Anthony Michael Hall played in “Sixteen Candles”—into the mix, since he’s just acquired a fake ID under the dubious name of McLovin that can perhaps be used to buy the booze. Unfortunately, his attempt to do so gets him involved with Officers Slater and Michaels (Bill Hader and Rogen himself), a pair of ultra-wacky cops who, in a separate but not quite equal plot thread that really runs parallel to the one focusing on Seth and Evan, take the kid on a wild night’s ride. The two stories converge toward the close, which brings both a friends-forever moment between Seth and Evan and a happy romantic outcome for them as implausible as the one Gary and Wyatt enjoyed in “Science” (as well as a revelation about those cops that makes even less sense than the rest of the movie).
“Superbad” will probably strike a chord with the same audiences that have embraced Apatow’s earlier movies—the arrested development set that thrives on rowdiness and raunchiness and celebrates the infantilism of the male side of the species as a source of boundless humor. It differs from “Virgin” and “Knocked Up” in throwing the infantilism back into the high school age group, but that’s not entirely a good thing, since much of the dialogue penned by Rogen and Goldberg, both in their mid-twenties, doesn’t sound entirely convincing in the supposedly eighteen-year old mouths of Seth and Evan (even if the former is played, after all, by an actor who’s in his mid-twenties too). The disparity probably won’t matter much, though, to the men-children who flock to these kinds of pictures and consider Apatow a sort of avatar of their generation’s comic sense—the same guys who automatically feel that anything Will Ferrell does is funny.
People outside the target demographic, though, may find the movie’s combination of slob, hormone-driven humor and sweetness less entertaining—especially since it’s drawn out to nearly two hours. And though they’ll probably appreciate Cera’s bumbling niceness, Hill’s overbearing persona does grate over the long haul, and you may run out of patience with the forced antics of Rogen and Hader long before the close. As for newcomer Mintz-Plasse, he certainly fashions a funny caricature, but one that’s ultimately reminiscent of the wild supporting figures that become the de facto stars of sitcoms. He’s about as real as Urkel.
The rather scruffy look of “Superbad” is presumably intentional, a sort of homage to the “Porky”-like pictures it’s updating, but that doesn’t make the movie any more attractive to watch. That’s appropriate, since it’s not all that enjoyable to listen to either, unless you’re a charter member of Apatow’s army. Then you’ll eat it all up.
The verdict: though “Superbad” doesn’t live down to the non-slang meaning of the title, it’s certainly not a supergood alternative to the usual run of teen sex-farces either. |
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