Fans of Judd Apatow’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” will delight at “Superbad,” a raunchy comedy movie that may not make audiences jerk a tear, but may just have them bust a gut.
The two-hour movie features three graduating high school seniors’ quest to lose their virginity and party as they prepare to go to different colleges.
Jonah Hill, who played a stoner in this summer’s “Knocked Up,” is Seth, a tubby, dirty-mouthed guy who builds the last days of his high school career upon the slight chance of sleeping with the illustrious Jules, a popular and intelligent girl from his home economics class.
After being invited to a house party by Jules, Seth is asked to buy all the booze for the event, as his friend Fogell is scoring a fake ID card.
Gangly, crackly-voiced Fogell, played by newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse, manages to score a fake ID card, but with one caveat. Faced with the option of being cool or being sensible, Fogell opts to be cool, thus designating himself “McLovin.” This enrages hot-tempered Seth and even exasperates his usually calm and mild-mannered best friend Evan, who is played by Michael Cera.
Evan is also chasing a romantic endeavor in the film, namely, his classmate Becka, who is Seth’s arch-nemesis. Becka humiliated Seth in elementary school by revealing his childhood preoccupation of drawing penises.
After Fogell witnesses an armed robbery in a liquor store when he is attempting to purchase alcohol, he find himself in the back seat of a police car with two party-hardy cops played by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader on a mission to prove that “not all cops are bad guys.”
While Fogell captures bums and drinks beer with the cops, Evan and Seth are involved in their own quest for alcohol, which includes trudging through a sleazy older party to try and steal booze.
The movie spins a classic tale of high school relationships and parties as seen in such films as “Can’t Hardly Wait” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” but it intrigues audiences when it shows high school in a much more realistic light than many of its predecessors.
Seth, Evan and Fogell, who are plagued by their nerdiness and lack of distinguishing talents, are accessible characters that every moviegoer could eventually relate to.
Anticipation built up in the movie is the kind every eager high school senior once felt. The feeling of high expectations that are crushed by the reality of a night filled with disappointment and irony. Surely, everybody can recall a high school party in which the ending turned out much worse than expected. Such is the heart of the story in “Superbad.”
Its success comes from the notion that fun in an adventure always comes from the journey.
Though the plot is predictable, the movie is two hours of random and explicit sex humor that will keep your attention.
It should be mentioned, however, that those people who are easily offended over crass conversation about the human anatomy might not enjoy the movie, as it’s filled with bawdy gross-out jokes and scenes. Of particular enjoyment to moviegoers who do not object to such humor would be Seth’s penis drawings, which are all shown at the end of the movie credits.
CSUN students may like the scene in which the police officer played by Hader does doughnuts in his police car in an empty parking lot, which was shot on Lassen Street between Zelzah and Lindley.
“Superbad” is the type of film you go to with friends for a laugh. Don’t expect any life-changing epiphanies to occur after seeing it because it’s not that type of movie. What you can expect is a steady stream of laughs, some outrageous jokes and a warm fuzzy feeling that makes you fondly remember your last days of far above the ground school.
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