Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Sera, Seth Rogen

Director: Greg Mottola

Running time: 1 hr 59 mins

Genre: Comedy/Teen


REVIEW:


SUPERBAD, in cinema, is rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image, all involving teens – right, just stop there for a sec and freeze frame on the last word: teens. What a rating for a teenage flick. It all sounded as though MPAA was promoting this film to everyone who wanted to see some “persuasive crude and sexual content” in a movie, and let alone, a teenage flick. Phew.


If you think SUPERBAD is an offensive, swear-word-magnet of a film, although it boasts almost a thousand word of it, then you should need to start putting on your cloaks and exit the moviehouse straight away. However, if you wanted some good fun chuck-full with misadventures, hilarious dialogues, mentally demented humour and slapstick antics, this is the super film for you. After all, this is brought by Judd Apatow, the one responsible for this year’s breakout comedy hit with a heart KNOCKED UP, and last few years’ THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, and written by Seth Rogen himself, the man responsible for “knocking up” Katherine Heigl in the aforementioned film.


Here, we come across another high school comedy, a genre so superfluously tackled a thousand times before, ever since Jason Biggs started pumping on some innocent pie. Two losers, appropriately names Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera), whose names could ring bells for the past Apatow leading “loser” mans, are on a crusade for their remaining high school days that is to lose their virginities and to get laid before making way for bigger horizons at college.


Wanting to prove themselves to girls on later party, they embark on a full-fledged alcoholic romp with the film’s geeky superstar, ridiculously named McLovin, with fake ID’s and pretentious personalities. While the film’s outer surface is all about rampaging teenage hormones and high-school sexual frustrations, it is not the movie’s main core, which gives SUPERBAD not just super-gross-out lewdness, but a super-good heart as well.


The performances are pretty unexpected for these amateur youngsters. Cera is that impeccable example of an innocent-looking youth, who respects girls but wanting to get his virginity over and done with, but his downfall sometimes rely heavily on his face that looked as though he’s suffering an identity crisis. Meanwhile, his opposite, Hill, is that motor-mouth teenager who could make Tarantino beaming with pride. He lives up to that standard where the earlier you get laid, the more experienced you become, and thinks of girls as they could be attracted to bed by booze.


But it’s the tale of friendship, the male bonding that lingers as the film fades; that when the best of buds do grow up, they have to face life separately yet still remain, with experiences, to be there for each other whatever may come, may they be silly coppers, booze-loaded wimps, and vomiting women.


VERDICT:


The accurate, rather hilarious, take on pre-adult sex-and-alcohol caper is a joyous, realistic film to watch. While it lacks in innovation and thrives on the revision of the genre, thankfully it doesn’t descend into the sulky, embarrassing American high-school picture status. SUPERBAD is a super-good film to watch when you’re super-bored.



RATING: B+