Superbad? More Like SuperGreat!

Sure, we all know who Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are today but ten years ago this very month, each of them got to headline their very first (but certainly not their last) motion picture with the Greg Mottola-directed feature Superbad. Neither came from out of nowhere of course since Cera had done Arrested Development for three seasons and Hill had been a character actor in a couple of comedies, but neither one were movie stars until Superbad came along and rocketed them both to new levels of fame. In my first time ever viewing of Superbad, I was delighted to see that the initial breakthrough movie for these two wasn't just a worthy start for two talented actors but may be one of the strongest movies either of them has ever appeared in.

The end of High School is on the horizon for Seniors Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera). They've got only three weeks left in their High School experience and Seth is determined to become a more sexually experienced person before he heads off to college while Evan harbors a long-standing crush of classmate Becca (Martha MacIsaac) he's too nervous to make a move on. Both of these guys may get a chance to fulfill their romantic urges when Seth is asked by his crush Jules (Emma Stone) to get booze for a house party she's hosting, an act that Seth is certain will be enough to get Jules to take a sexual interest in.

Of course, being under 21, these guys are gonna need a fake ID to get the alcohol needed for that party Jules is hosting and they'll need to turn to Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) for help on that matter since he's the one with the fake ID. What sounds like it should be a simple excursion turns into way more than that as Fogell gets picked up two cops (played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen) and Seth and Evan need to find an alternate way to get their heavily coveted booze. In their night-long trek to procure alcohol for the party, seething tensions between Seth and Evan come to the surface and nothing, and I do mean nothing, goes according to plan.

So many High School comedies (namely those 1980's John Hughes-penned features like The Breakfast Club I so openly despise) feel like unentertaining wish fulfillment fantasies that end up being simply shallow idealized visions of teenager-dom. But Superbad, like last Fall's excellent The Edge Of Seventeen, is far more interested in mining comedy out of authentic representations of teenage angst. Speaking as a guy who was a teenage male only a few years ago, teenage dudes constantly have ambitions in their heads (mainly on romantic matters) that reality can never live up to and Superbad has an incredible amount of fun playing Seth and Evan's expectations for how their night of partying is supposed to transpire against how it actually plays out.

Needless to say, no big kisses against a starry sky signaling true romance or glorious sexual experiences can be found here. Instead, Seth and Evan are always in over their head, any sort of plan they concoct (like Seth trying to sneak loads of liquor out of an adult party by way of sneaking it in detergent canisters) always ends in disaster and that provides plenty of fodder for memorable humor. The awkwardness of one's teenage years is on full display in Superbad and it's authentic depiction of this period in a person's life not only makes the screenplay penned by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg hilarious, it also makes it ring far truer than the vast majority of High School comedies.

And when I say Superbad is hilarious, boy howdy do I mean that, this is an exceptionally funny feature. Basically anything revolving around Fogell had me in stitches, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is so good at portraying this feeble dweeb as such a realistic youngster that just watching his body language turned out to be a hoot, let alone when he's having to deliver well-written lines like a retort against Seth's threat to rip off Fogell's face. Also delivering plenty of yuks are Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, these two have a great chemistry that both feels faithful to reality and results in some of the biggest laughs of the entire movie. It's seriously impressive how Hill is able to play this rambunctious constantly foul-mouthed guy without creating a grating performance in the process while Cera gets a lot of big laughs playing off Hill's character with a completely opposite personality that also serves him well in one of the movies most humorous sequences which depicts Evan's verbal reactions to being the cusp of losing his virginity.

Both Jonah Hill and Michael Cera do a great job in their performances capturing that sense of authenticity that makes Superbad such a unique and tremendously funny movie. The constant presence of enjoyable humor is buoyed by sharp editing courtesy of William Kerr. Like any Judd Apatow-produced movie, I assume a good chunk of the dialogue of Superbad was improvised, but those expecting the sort of dead air and aimlessness that can emerge from many improv-heavy comedies need not fear as Kerr does a fine job of keeping things well-paced, helped, of course by Rogen and Goldberg's screenplay giving the two characters a persistent and clear goal in mind (get the booze and then get to the party) that lends the narrative a welcome sense of propulsion.

All of this is done under the direction of Greg Mottola, a guy who would further demonstrate his keen sense of understanding of realistic depictions of teenage troubles that aids Superbad so much in the wonderful 2009 dramedy Adventureland (pity he was stuck doing work-for-hire on the unfunny and forgettable Keeping Up With The Joneses last Fall). Mottola does a great job here in Superbad, embodying the sense of craftsmanship and understanding of wit that runs throughout the cast & crew and the movie as a whole. In case you can't tell, I'll lay it out simply; I thought Superbad was a total riot and that rare High School comedy that actually seems to get how High Schoolers behave and act and it's all the more hilarious because of that.