Superbad (2007)

VERDICT:
9/10 Hawaiian Organ Donors

One of the funniest movies I’ve seen in the past ten years.

Superbad is about three unpopular High School Seniors that get invited to a house party by the most popular girls in school – girls that they incidentally all have crushes on. Being that they don’t want to look like losers, they volunteer to supply the booze, but since they’re underage and can’t actually buy the stuff, they spend the rest of the night doing everything in their power to get that liquor and be the life of the party.

For a while there, I was pretty set on giving this one a well-earned 8 out of 10, but after reading over reviews for The Hangover at Rotten Tomatoes and catching a number of critics praising it for being funny from start to finish, all I could think about was Superbad. The thing is, there aren’t a lot of comedies out there that actually are funny from start to finish where there isn’t any downtime from laughing your ass off, that right there is something special. And while The Hangover can be really damn funny, it’s not of those movies.

Superbad, on the other hand, is indeed one of those movies.

The short version of this review can be summed up in one word – “McLovin” – but this movie has a lot more going for it than just the best fake ID of all time. Every freakin’ scene, every freakin’ gag, every freakin’ character had me clutching my ribs and laughing my ass off well after I first left the theater and with each new time I see it. Everything about this movie works on so many levels that “teen comedies” rarely do because it never lets up, it’s not sugarcoated and in turn it’s believable.

The kids we’re dealing with here aren’t the jocks or the class presidents, these are the awkward wallflowers who curse like sailors while raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets before getting sauced in their basements. For once, they’re actual teenage boys with sex on their mind like they just got out of prison and no one thinks they’re very cool outside of their own tight knit circle. They’re not gonna get any noteworthy superlatives, but you know what, fuck superlatives, these are the kids I want to hang out with. Even though I could have only dreamt of experiencing one night of debauchery like these kids do, I connected with this trio and even now would be more than happy to get sloshed in the basement with them. 

I remember hearing Seth Rogen talk about how he and Evan Goldberg started writing the script when they were 12, and aside from outright naming the two main characters Seth and Evan, it’s easy to tell that this movie was written with authenticity. ANd then there’s Michael Cera back before he started playing the same role every time, Jonah Hill in a career-launching role that made him a household name and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (turns out he has a real name) in a career-launching role that he’ll never escape from the rest of his days are all awesome in a Revenge of the Nerds kinda way. A really hilarious cast of up-and-comers right there.

Seth Rogen and Bill Hader especially are also a total riot as the world’s coolest cops. 

Superbad might be a bit on the crude side for some, but if you’re looking to laugh and laugh hard, there aren’t a whole lot of other comedies as of late that I’d more readily suggest. Great writing, great characters and that scene where Jonah Hill goes into the supermarket and dreams up all the different scenarios about how he could get a hold of the booze still cracks me up like no other. Gotta love those dream sequences.