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Post-American Pie the teen flick directory has ranged from the disastrous (Bratz: The Movie, Loser and Dude, Where's My Car?) to the sublime (Road Trip). None have really troubled the original pie-humping flick for the "coolest in the canon" tag though and even older hits like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Animal House still deserve a watch before even entertaining tripe like Not Another Teen Movie and, God help us, Epic Movie. Concisely put, trying to entertain the youth of today can be either a very profitable or very hazardous procedure.
The collaborative talents of Canadian comic Seth Rogen, fellow screenwriter Evan Goldberg, and director Judd Apatow have slightly changed the norms of the genre in recent times however. The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up certainly have a teenage target audience but both works dealt with mature themes. Superbad, on the other hand, may involve a played to death formula, this time the childish classic losing-your-virginity-before-college routine, but director Greg Mottola (Apatow has drafted in some fresh blood to the troupe whilst he takes a producing credit) infuses an aged mellowness within the chaos of amassing booze for a party, preparing for a fresh start at college, and trying to get laid, of course. Rogen and Goldberg's semi-autobiographical screenplay is certainly a hoot and when luckless events start piling up in such a consistently humorous manner, one can see how a childhood project evolved into a cinematic delicacy.
The lead performances are every bit as intriguing as high school stereotypes allow with the appropriate mix of wacky characters we have come to expect - Jonah Hill's Seth is an overweight, foul-mouthed and volatile sex fanatic and Michael Cera's always deadpanned Evan is a shy and nervous wreck looking for true love. Together, this duo is indicative of Laurel and Hardy rather than Butch and Sundance. Christopher Mintz-Plasse's Fogel/McLovin is possibly the standout though of the entire cast and completes the nerdy trio as the holder of a fake I.D. who strives for the all-important booze to complete the end-of-school party the group has to attend. In theory, the liquor will lower the standards of Becca, Jules and Nicola (the objects of desire) and our heroes will hit the jackpot, right? Well, sensibly Mottola doesn't really venture into college life and the open-ended scenario at the climax of proceedings is an apt finale. In fact, as some critics have pointed out, one can easily imagine Seth, Evan and Fogel growing into the unlikely Big Lebowski unholy troika of Bridges, Turturro and Goodman.
Rogen and Hader also add quality to the film as two nutty Star Wars-referencing cops who befriend the geeky Fogel and lead him on an adventure for the ages. This coincides with Seth and Evan's long journey to the Mecca-like domain of Jules' house - Stone, like all of the girls, plays second fiddle to the male bonding prose Rogen and Goldberg excel in - and the pacing which Mottola uses to build up this spiral of episode after episode is perfect. The cringeworthiness of the piece gets more uneasy for the viewer when one realises how relatable these events actually are.
The summary
Get ready to squirm and chortle uproariously, Superbad moves beyond the boundaries of a teen picture and acts as a heartfelt companion piece to The 40 Year Old Virgin because of the unconventional elements of comedy/romance.
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