Finally, Superbad and Adventureland

Exegesis

Something I bring up so commonly it's now become a running gag is the fact that I don't like Superbad. I enjoy the Apatow films, I enjoy Michael Cera, but I really was not terribly fond of Superbad. My roommate J has heard my explanation of this more than once, M has yet to hear it. So as not to bother either of them with further harangues, here it is:

WHY SUPERBAD AND ADVENTURELAND SUFFER FROM THE SAME BASIC PROBLEM

Superbad and Adventureland both attempt to have their cake and eat it to. And they do neither very well. This is more pronounced in Superbad, where the film is simultaneously trying to be a slice-of-life teen comedy like Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti and a wacky hijinx teen comedy like Porky's or American Pie. It really doesn't do either all that well.

Superbad is too ridiculous to be a slice-of-life teen comedy. It's almost believable until the party they stumble into. Oh yes, and McLovin. You can't expect a sense of realism in a film where two cops take a teenager, give him a night on the town, get him drunk, and blow up their own patrol vehicle after shooting it repeatedly.

Superbad is too earnest to be a wacky hijinx comedy. We're supposed to sympathize with the fat kid at the end when he gets utterly shitfaced and confesses that he believes there's no way the cute girl would be willing to do anything with him unless she were wasted. Then he falls on the cute girl giving her a facial bruise in the process. Ha ha. Then there's this adorable little heart to heart with Michael Cera. Aww. Problem is, we just in the previous scene saw two patrol officers blowing up their car with McLovin before accidentally cockblocking him at the party.

The end result is this bizarre amalgamation of the two teen comedy subgenres, and the result is this:



What the hell is that thing? It looks kinda like a duck. It looks kinda like a rabbit. But it really isn't quite either. It looks weird. Likewise with Superbad. It's kind of like American Pie. It's kind of like Dazed and Confused. But it's really not quite either, kind of halfway between the two.

Adventureland suffers from the same basic problem. It's also kind of a slice-of-life movie. The life and times of a guy and his fellow carnies, the guy a recent college graduate down on his luck finding no better employment for the summer. It's also your classic nerd fantasy: the girl he likes is seeing an older, cooler musician-type. Oh no! But he wuvs her so so very much and is such a nice, sensitive guy that he doesn't do anything about it, no, he wuvs her so so very much he turns down advances from the MegaHottie who comes on to him, and at the end, whoah! turns out the musician type isn't as cool as everyone said he was!!! and they break up and he finally wins the girl YIPPEE!!!

So there. That, M, is my problem with Superbad and Adventureland.

1 comments: (+add yours?)

Katherine said...
March 21, 2010 at 1:11 PM

MY TWO CENTS (at least as far as Adventureland is concerned):

While we all see movies to be entertained, we still watch movies for slightly different reasons—we all find different things entertaining. For someone like me, who's worked a job kind of like Adventureland (rundown, anachronistic, weird bosses, past its prime, but with infinite amounts of charm), I couldn't give two shits about the romance. It was all about the job and how they portrayed the park that I watched it for. "Finally, someone made a movie about the kind of job I have!"

But whoever cast Kristen Stewart needs to be slapped. She's awful! I thought it was just Twilight that made her acting suck, but no. She was just as bad in Adventureland, to the point where I enjoyed the movie a little less because of her.

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