McLovin - Character of the Year

Few movies are as impressively funny as Superbad, mainly because they tend to try too hard. Superbad is barebones and simple. Since most of the laughs are derived from conversational rants and put-downs, it also feels warmly familiar. Superbad gets the teen age. You know, the age when kids just can't wait to grow older; when they don't savor their youth-they just want to be 21 asap so they can buy alcohol, go to night clubs and get shitfaced. That makes them baaad. Better yet, to do those things when you're still not legally allowed? That would make you superbad.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the movie when they were 13 years old, and that shows in the story; concerning self-named Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) as they try to score booze with the ulterior motive of scoring a couple of drunken tails. In other words, the classic Hero's Journey for teenagers. Meanwhile, the film's mascot who's already inducted into pop culture psyche before the movie was even released, the one-named McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), is taken by the two most unqualified cops ever (Seth Rogen and Bill Hader) for a late night joyride. The result is one wild R-rated night.

Heed this: Superbad is a dirty movie. But you never really see anything graphic or that dirty, save for an extremely juvenile but still admittedly inspired montage of penis drawings. The endlessly entertaining dialogue is firmly in the Kevin Smith/Judd Apatow school of verbalizing dick and fart jokes, as opposed to visualizing them. Seth Rogen himself wondered if a movie could be so foul-mouthed that it gets an NC-17 rating. A question yet to be answered, but Superbad definitely tried.

So what can you say about a movie like this? It's not like Knocked Up or The 40-year-Old Virgin where there is a progression to the plot that can be processed and judged. Superbad is a short-distance road movie that all happens in one night, not unlike those teen films of the 80s (anybody remember that Keanu Reeves vehicle The Night Before?). You have your side trips and run-ins with oddball characters, followed by the characters learning something valuable. A formulaic story thought up by junior high schoolers, yes, but who cares, when the individual scenes are hysterically funny? Jonah Hill plays a good wiseass, and Michael Cera does his always-adorable timid act, while I don't need to elaborate on Mintz-Plasse's memorable turn as McLovin.

The two Apatow hits had received some criticism for being conservative in their more dramatic scenes, and while Superbad ultimately falls into that category also with its don't-rush-away-your-teen-years message, it doesn't give itself the chance to be too insightful like that, by hardly ever steering away from being a purely raunchy comedy. With a penis montage. That features more penis than a party at Alan Cumming's. Besides, enjoying innocence... isn't that a message we can all get behind? It's not a polarizing topic like abortion.

The film isn't flawless-in fact, it's pretty easy to list the flaws: The dragging second act that has them wandering from one place to another. The whiny loudmouth nature of the Seth character, which gradually becomes grating. McLovin's crazy subplot, while totally stealing the movie and easily sets him up as character of the year, doesn't mesh as well with the more down-to-earth main quest of Seth and Evan. With that said, these complaints seem so minute when you think about the big picture here. With all these setbacks, it's still the safe bet for a movie to rattle your funnybone like a spastic.

It's a movie you have to watch at least twice, just to make sure you get the full experience. You know how comedies typically have reaction shots that linger after a joke? Say, after someone hits a pole, you get ten seconds of someone else making faces? It's just to let the audience's laughter die down before moving on. Superbad doesn't concern itself with those things, because the rapid-fire delivery ensures that it has more jokes packed in a minute of its running time than in the entirety of any recent comedies to mind.

- Cross posted from JustPressPlay.net