High School seniors and best friends Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are coming to the end of their teenage days together. The latter is going to college at Dartmouth in the Fall, the former going to school much closer to home. With that being the case it’s time to drop all pretenses and send their last days out with a bona fide bang. 

Michael Cera, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse have one wild night in Columbia Pictures' Superbad

From that simple synopsis the new teen comedy Superbad, sprung forth by some of the minds who crafted Freaks & Geeks, The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, firmly establishes itself as being one of the funniest motion pictures audiences will have the pleasure to see this year. It is an instant contender for being this generation’s Animal House, this decade’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High, this year’s The Breakfast Club, and as such has the potential to be thought of as a classic with the passage of time. 

Personally, I can’t remotely admit to putting it within that pantheon. While the film is certainly funny, I didn’t laugh near as much as those around me did, some of the raunchiness and gross-out theatrics not exactly the type of things that make me chortle in blissful exuberance. I just don’t tend to go for these kinds of movies all that often, and in the spirit of openness I feel like this is an admission I should probably make before you continue reading.

What I do like is a film with intelligence, wit and something interesting to say. Writers Seth Rogan (so good in Knocked Up) and Evan Goldberg take bits and pieces of their own childhood and craft a tale of surprising immediacy and shocking modern relevance while still weaving in all the vomiting, boob-shots, drunkenness, sex, drugs and rock and roll people expect from the genre. They do all this yet still craft real, three-dimensional characters going through honest to goodness human trials and tribulations, making Superbad both outrageously hilarious (at times) and emotionally poignant (unexpectedly often) all at once.

As with all these kinds of films, there is a breakout performer impossible to get out of your head. For me, that person isn’t Evan Almighty and Accepted actor Hill or Arrested Development star Cera. Instead, that actor is startling breakout newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse. While the other two are great (and have real best-friend chemistry I completely believed), this kid is so knock-you-out-with-a-two-by-four and then slap-you-in-the-face-with-a-slice-of-cold-ham funny I almost couldn’t take it anymore. His McLovin’ (he’s got another name but it isn’t important) is an instant classic, and like Jeff Spicoli and Bluto Blutarsky his is a character we’re going to remember for quite some time.

The rest of the film is pretty slapdash, not too mention at almost two hours just a wee bit long. For every brilliant moment like one where Seth and Evan inadvertently walk in on a very adult kegger there are a couple of tired scenes (most revolving around Rogan and Bill Hader’s narcissistic police officers) that tend to grind thing to a halt. But the film generally recovers from these hiccups, often quite brilliantly, the giggle quotient so freakishly high here I’d have to be insane to not tell people to go see it. 

While I’m not quite as in rapture with Superbad as so many of my peers seem to be, I still enjoyed the heck out of it. It’s bumpy, a bit long and not altogether as wondrous or magical as some would lead you to believe. But it is funny, sometimes painfully so, its comedy laced with biting truth everyone who has gone to High School can relate to and that, in the end, is more then enough to earn my gold star of appreciation.

Film Rating:  êêê  (out of 4)

Additonal Links

-  Superbad Theatrical Trailer