Director: Greg Mottola
From the opening scene in which best friends Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) discuss the merits of subscribing to a porn Web site, "Superbad" has only one thing on its monomaniacal mind. It also happens to be one of the funniest and most charming American comedies I've seen for ages.
There's absolutely nothing new about "Superbad." It's yet another tale of nerdy school kids desperate to get laid against all the social odds. But what makes it so much better than any of its predecessors is the sharpness and warmth of the dialog and the fact that the characters are hopelessly endearing.
The chubby Seth is so sex-obsessed that he's almost frothing at the mouth, while the cherubic-faced Evan is secretly in love with Becca but too shy to do anything about it. When their friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) gets a fake ID card, Seth offers to buy the booze for an end-of-school party. His hope is that some girl or other will get so drunk that she'll sleep with him only to dismiss as a "mistake" the next day.
But just as Fogell is about to buy the booze, a man runs in and punches him in the face and robs the liquor store. Fogell ends up hanging out all night with the two cops who are called to the scene, while Seth and Evan wind up on a little odyssey of their own before finally making it to the party.
The story might not sound very impressive but "Superbad" is so downright funny that it hardly matters. Like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," it perfectly combines astute observation with naive nonsense and manages to do so with a slightly wistful air. As the Borat and early Farrelly brother films showed, great comedy should always have a slightly wistful air about it.
One of the most delightful scenes in the movie is when Seth and Evan, who are both completely hammered after the party, finally admit that they love each other (as friends, of course). It had the homosceptic (I really mean phobic) Latvian audience groaning and squirming in their seats.
"Superbad" also boasts the best - and I mean the best - penis joke in the history of penis jokes. I would normally superciliously scoff at the mere mention of a penis joke but this really is painfully funny. You have to see it to believe it, though.
Opens Oct. 19 in Estonia, Oct. 5 in Latvia and Oct. 26 in Lithuania
