Bartleby “B” Gaines (Justin Long) is a bright enough kid, definitely far more creative and whip-smart than the majority of his graduating High School class. He can play the system and find a loophole faster than you can say “Ferris Bueller,” and with charm oozing from every pore it’s easy to see why his friends Schrader (Jonah Hill) and Hands (Columbus Short) are so willing to follow him anywhere.

So what’s the problem? Well, as far as his parents are concerned B’s life is all about guaranteed to go nowhere, their energetically clever son managing to get rejected by all eight universities to which he’s applied. Quite frankly, this has all the makings of being a huge disaster for the kid, and with options decreasing by the second B had better come up with a way out of this quagmire before his parents completely write him off as a failure before he turns 19.

The solution to his problems comes in the form of the South Hampton Institute of Technology, a lofty and prestigious university B eccentrically invents himself. With Schrader’s help (who is actually getting ready to matriculate at the very real Harmon University) the duo create a website for their fictitious college that promises acceptance is just one click away. Thing is, the two do their job all too well, next thing B, Hands and fellow rejectees Rory (Maria Thayer) and Glen (Adam Herschman) know several hundred students are at their front door looking to call South Harmon home.

The shockingly uproarious new comedy “Accepted” is quite possibly one of the summer’s most pleasingly imbecilic surprises. Marking the directorial debut of frequent John Cusack collaborator Steve Pink (“Grosse Point Blank,” “High Fidelity”), this sly and subversive college campus satire is as winningly silly as any I’ve seen in years. Smart, fun and full of laughs, this is just the kind of ironic, twisted and inexplicably sly comedy a person could unwittingly fall in love with. For those of us who loved “Real Genius,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Risky Business” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” this might just be the movie we’ve all been waiting eons for.

Emphasis on the might. For all this comedy’s strengths I couldn’t help but want a bit more from it than I ultimately ended up receiving. There’s an awfully long dry spell during the midsection nearly killing any and all forward momentum, and a climactic bit before the state school board doesn’t go near as well as it probably should. I also found the staid status quo villains of Harmon University to be a bit too ponderous, and while I know pompously clueless educators like the one played by Anthony Heald are par for the course in films like this one that doesn’t necessarily mean the character is any less tiresome.

Thankfully, Pink and company are able to overcome these roadblocks, “Accepted” filled with enough good performances, solid ideas and great jokes that each and every misstep doesn’t matter near as much as it probably should. While Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Mark Perez’s screenplay (based on the latter’s original story) doesn’t exactly cover new ground, Pink’s touch is so gloriously sardonic and snide, yet laved with just the right amount of heart, that the whole thing is elevated to a pleasingly humorous plane entirely its own.

It helps that the picture is cast amazingly well. While I’ve always enjoyed the baby-faced Long, the kid has never really impressed me quite as much as he does here. He’s the movie’s center, the silly plastic-faced clock chock full of ideas making everything around him tick. While he’s no Matthew Broderick or Sean Penn he’s certainly still an engaging performer who captains this ship to blissfully comical success.

But it is the trio of Hill, Herschman and Lewis Black (playing a politically incorrect disenfranchised former educator B ropes into playing the part of his fictional school’s fake dean) who steal the spotlight. Each of them is utterly fantastic in their own wildly dissimilar fashion, all having at least one laugh out loud moment I just didn’t see coming. I loved them all, and I’m pretty certain there’s no way in Heaven or Hell I’d have enjoyed this thing half as much as I did if they weren’t a part of it.

Listen, while I wish the writers would have been able to keep their momentum up and avoid a few dry spells, there is more than enough going on to the positive these flaws end up becoming fairly moot. Better, as a person who had their own bear of a time dealing with collegiate bureaucratic rigmarole, any movie that has the wherewithal to ponder an educational system with more freedoms and less restrictive pigeonholing automatically makes me smile. One that basis alone, rejecting something as winning as “Accepted” isn’t just wrong, it’s impossible.

Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)