Superbad (2007) Review

 

Superbad (2007)

Superbad follows Seth and Evan, who are invited to a house party, where together they spend the day trying to score enough alcohol to supply the party and inebriate two girls in order to kick-start their sex lives before heading off to college. 

This semi-autobiographical look at writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg’s lives growing up in Canada popped up the other day for McLovin’s 40th Birthday (makes me feel really old), so what better time than to finally cross it off the list. Throughout the 2000s, just about every teen (or slightly above teen) comedy was trying to replicate that raunchy, shock value that American Pie brought to the table. Superbad, admittedly does raunchy and shocking better than most, but what separates it is it’s also just about teens trying to grow up too fast. Essentially, it has heart and laughs in a place where heart would normally be lacking. 

Being a new spin on the classic coming of age tale, there’s nothing inherently special about the plot, but it shines in it’s characterizations of characters and more specifically, the hormone and alcohol driven teens of the Superbad world. They’re nerdy, socially awkward outcasts, who have one real chance before summer to impress the ladies (which is what makes McLovin being the only successful one so much better) and yet every chance they get, they find some way of screwing it up (at least they think so). 

The movie also kickstarted a ton of the modern crop of comedy actors careers, featuring Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Seth Rogan, Matha MacIsaac, Michael Cera, and Jonah Hill. The buddy cop duo of Rogan and Hader is absolutely genius, especially in the pairing with Mintz-Plasse, who delivers such awkward confidence that makes McLovin’ all the more unforgettable. Cera and Hill are also hilarious together, in the most crudely, improvisational way imaginable. 

Superbad, directed by the king of raunchy but sincere comedies, Judd Apatow—is a ridiculously quotable and hysterical coming of age story that takes the mindless, crude comedy tropes and dares to make you think and feel on a deeper level in one of the funniest and most transcendent teen comedies of the 21st Century. 

9.1/10