Four out of
Five stars
Running time:
113 mins
Superbly written, extremely funny and surprisingly sweet teen comedy with a trio of terrific comic performances from Michael Cera, Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
What's it all about?
Jonah Hill and Michael Cera (George Michael from Arrested Development) play high school best friends Seth and Evan, who are determined to lose their virginity before heading off to university. They get what they think might be their chance when the girl of Seth's dreams (Emma Stone as Jules) invites them to a graduation party, on the condition that they provide the booze.
Fortunately, the boys' super-nerdy friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) has recently acquired a fake ID and he agrees to help them out if he can tag along. However, Fogell's fake ID just says McLovin', and after a disastrous attempt to buy booze he ends up getting whisked off on a night to remember by two idiotic cops (Bill Hader and Seth Rogen), while Seth and Evan somehow wind up at the wrong party.
The Good
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's script clearly contains a healthy dose of autobiographical detail and the situations that their onscreen alter-egos find themselves in are instantly familiar, both from our own lives and from countless teen movies. As a result, the film is consistently hilarious and the script crackles with witty, quotable dialogue.
Hill and Cera are superbly cast (it's easy to imagine Hill as a young Seth Rogen) and their relationship is surprisingly moving. However, as good as the two leads are, the film is comprehensively stolen by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, whose performance as McLovin' is hysterically funny throughout.
The Bad
It's probably fair to say that the gross-out gags are less successful than the film's other jokes (one in particular should probably have been dropped) but that's a minor quibble at best.
Worth seeing?
In short, Superbad is a genuinely hilarious teen comedy with a fantastic script and wonderful comic performances from its three leads. Recommended.