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Lissa does Superbad
Posted by Lissa
“This guy is either gonna think ‘Here’s another kid with a fake ID’ or ‘Here’s McLovin, a 25 year-old Hawaiian organ donor’.”
The Scoop: 2007, R, directed by Greg Mottola and starring Seth Rogan and Michael Cera
Tagline: Come and get some.
Summary Capsule: Three geeky kids try to get laid before they graduate. Gee. Sound familiar? (Um, I mean to other movies, not your own life.)
Lissa’s Rating: Superyawn
Lissa’s Review:I saw this movie well over a month ago, and have been attempting to formulate a review ever since, and I just can’t seem to get myself off my butt and do it. Even now, I have my Facebook page open in the background so I can reward myself with a game of Scramble after every paragraph. (This would explain why my high score is 257.) This movie was just that uninspiring to me.
I had hopes. For some reason I had it in my head that this was a Judd Apatow script, which might partly account for my disappointment. (It was Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, for the few of you who didn’t know that. But Seth Rogan’s worked with Judd Apatow a lot, and Apatow was one of the producers on this.) It’s full of barely-past-indy actors who seem to be involved in a lot of good comedies these days. Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill (who I first saw in the rather underrated Accepted)… we were just missing Paul Rudd and Justin Long, I think. And the setup, while pretty predictable, seemed like it could be full of entertaining but true insights to being young and stupid. (Because sorry, but stupidity sort of goes with the territory when you’re a teenager.)
And I guess that was all there. But still.
The plot was pretty American Pie-like. Three high school buddies — Seth (Hill), Evan (Cera), and the Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) — want to get laid before they graduate high school. In order to do this, they offer to get booze for a party. Of course, since they’re under 21, getting booze is harder than it is for me, since no one ever cards me anymore now that I’m old enough to be someone’s mother. And wacky hijinks ensure. And, as I’m sure you can guess since this movie is focused on teenaged boys, so does profanity.
The thing is, I don’t consider myself a prude. I’ve got a pretty healthy inner twelve-year-old, and although I might make pretensions to class, I enjoy a good scatological joke at times as well. And sex jokes are often downright funny. And I’m certainly not going to start wailing about “the children”, because come on people, not everything in this world should be appropriate for three year olds. But a sex joke has to be more than just actually saying the naughty words, y’know? Anyone can say them, but it takes some wit to actually transform sex terms into something funny.
But Superbad is one of the few movies I’ve ever seen that was really ruined for me by the profanity and language. It wasn’t that it was particularly disgusting; it was that it was boring. Seriously. The pacing was really thrown off by the constant stream of off-color “jokes”, and I just wanted the story to move along. Because there was a story there, and if the movie had been a half-hour shorter, it would have been much better.
Plus, I thought some of the jokes (like the blood one) were a little too gross. But after talking to Al about the movie, I think that just might be my X chromosome talking.
The thing about Judd Apatow movies is that generally, despite the profanity and the sex gags and the puerile humor, there’s usually a story in there, and it’s often times touching. Partly because it’s believable, and partly because the characterization makes it become believable. Superbad fell down in the characterization. I really like the idea of two geeks who are best friends, and one’s ready and eager to move onto college and the other hasn’t quite gotten to that point yet. It’s got a lot of potential, and while sure, it might not be the most novel story in the universe, it’s something we can all relate to. But the real story got lost in the onslaught of four-year-old humor, and it was really to the story’s detriment. The balance was off.
Well, I’ve played a good five games of Scramble, and frankly, I’ve run out of things to say. I ended up finding this movie so forgettable and dull that I’m really just phoning this review in. If you want a good teen sex comedy, go back to the video store and rent American Pie for the millionth time. It really was a lot better.
Spawn 1 has his driver's permit? May God have mercy on us all!
- Seth and Evan. Duh, of course you noticed. It’s like noticing an anvil being dropped on your head.
- The young Becky is holding a very different drawing than the one the movie says she is. Thank God
- -Some serious guy love going here. (::Cues JD and Turk.::)
- What the guys did versus what they say they did? That cracked me up and made me think that this was actually going to be a good movie for a moment.
- How hard a time I had finding appropriate quotes for this? Sheesh.
IS IT WORTH STAYING THROUGH THE END CREDITS?
- Only if you really feel the need to see more of Seth’s drawings. (And according to IMDb, a lot of the minor character actors were credited with their “porn star” names.)
INTERMISSION
- Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg started this script when they were thirteen. This explains SO much.
- Because the guy playing Fogell was only seventeen at the time, his mother had to be on set for the filming of his sex scene. Wow. My opinion of this young man’s acting chops just went up a hundredfold, because I sure couldn’t fake having sex with my mother watching and not die of embarrassment. (About that. I really wonder how many actors watch their works with their parents, and how everyone in the room feels when the steamy scenes come on. I mean, I love my boys and everything, but once they’re old enough I do not want to see what they look like having sex, even if it’s all acting, y’know? How awkward must it be to have your parents know what you look like having an orgasm?)
- Oh. I see from IMDb that Justin Long originally WAS in the movie, but his scene was cut for length.
GROOVY QUOTES
- Evan: This guy is either gonna think ‘Here’s another kid with a fake ID’ or ‘Here’s McLovin, a 25 year-old Hawaiian organ donor’.
Seth: You dropped your purse, ma’am. Would you like me to help you with your shopping?
Old Lady: That would be lovely! Do you want me to buy you alcohol?
Seth: That would be lovely!
Seth: He is the sweetest guy. Have you ever looked into his eyes? It was like the first time I heard the Beatles.
The only thing I really enjoyed in this movie was the Mclovin scenes with the cops. That should have been the entire movie. I guess it doesn’t help I really, really don’t like Jonah Hill in anything I’ve seen him in. He was tolerable in this movie but his mouth, his acting, his entire character was just so mean I couldn’t help but hate him.
IIRC this is the flick which Justin claims to have walked out on when he saw it at the theater. It does sound pretty horrid.
I, too, was bored to death watching this movie. I heard it was so “awesome” from a guy friend, and I was severely disappointed. I had to turn it off a about halfway through and watch something more interesting. I agree that there was a better movie to be had there. Oh, and “How awkward must it be to have your parents know what you look like having an orgasm?” made me groan out loud in disgust and terror. Great review.
There’s an unwritten law in the Book of Families:
Parents are to assume that their children never have “relations” and that any grand children that may appear are the result of either spontaneous generation, the arrival of the stork or magic. Any evidence to the contrary is to be specifically ignored and never spoken of. Ever.
Vice versa, the children of parents are to assume that their parents never have “relations” and the evidence of their existence is entirely explainable in similar fashion (see “Where Grand Children Come From” above).
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