Three ‘super’ geeks evoke memories of high school

By Oliver Joszt

Living through those awkward high school years might have been bad, but you’re never too old to relive the
humiliation.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg write an amazing screenplay filled with sexual anxiety, a rush to obtain alcohol and teenage awkwardness, all overflowing with a theme of righteousness.

Superbad follows two teenage friends, Seth and Evan (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera), who are hoping to get laid before everyone goes away to college. They go on a pursuit to find some alcohol to bring to a party, hoping that they will become the late-night mistake of some drunken girls. At the same time, their friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is on his own journey with two adventurous cops and a fake ID with the name “McLovin” on it.

Don’t be put off by the concept of the story. It does sound like every other teenage movie released within the last 30 years, but Superbad is a hilarious journey.

It doesn’t have any major star power in it, but this movie has more laughs than most movies filled with high-profile celebrities. Hill and Cera pull off their scenes together brilliantly because of their ability to bring to life those familiarly close and awkward moments. If they’re not best friends in real life, they could have fooled me.

Although there is a lot of physical humor, the movie is filled with great comedic dialogue. Rogen makes us not only laugh at the characters, but with the characters. As the movie goes on, we start to care for the characters and root for them to get the girl at the end.

Then there are Officer Michaels and Officer Slater (Rogen and Bill Hader) who bring action and excitement to the movie. They are desperately clinging to their youth and act as lost boys with badges, growing rampant with crazed enthusiasm and irresponsibility.

Fogell, who goes on these outlandish adventures with the cops, is the most memorable of all the characters. Mintz -Plasse plays McLovin, a geeky high school kid perfectly (maybe because he really was a high school kid while filming). Long after you forget most of the movies that came out this year, you will remember McLovin, the “25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor.”

Superbad is very similar to other adolescent, raunchy films such as American Pie and Porky’s. But at the same time Superbad transcends these typical teenage films and pursues thoughtfulness and wisdom. Producer Judd Apatow’s films add an extra dimension of humanity to his characters. He seems to have a reoccurring theme of insecurity and the flaws within oneself within his works.

Of course, he goes for the outrageous comedic effects, but at the same time he is telling us so much more. Even the female characters of the movie are nothing like the typical “bimbos” we see in movies, especially Jules (Emma Stone), who says that she doesn’t need alcohol in order to like a guy.

Furthermore, the film also addresses the topic of friendship and Seth and Evan’s anxiety about the future. After high school, the two are going to different colleges; they know that being away from each other means that their friendship will never be as close as it is now. They want to experience college, but gaining that new experience may weaken their close bond.

Watching Superbad will hopefully bring back some sense of nostalgia, whether good or bad, from an embarrassing time that you can come to appreciate and laugh at now.