Review: Superbad

The Judd Apatow machine presses on with this lat­est phal­lic install­ment in the superproducer’s heap­ing ouevre of suc­cess. While Mr. Apatow is still com­ing of age as a direc­tor of films, “Superbad” proves that he can guide a project to suc­cess in his spare time. To use an oft-heard moniker for younger suc­cess sto­ries, he may in fact be the next Spielberg. By this I mean the Spielberg of the 80s who hired direc­tors for projects he didn’t have time to do, often tak­ing over mid-way through pro­duc­tion. I am reminded, in see­ing this film, of “Poltergeist”, which Spielberg took hold of from Tobe Hooper, who sadly whit­tled away into obliv­ion com­pared to the suc­cesses he should have made so early in his career. There is lit­tle doubt in my mind that Greg Mottola, who directed “Superbad” in case you didn’t know, will prob­a­bly be remem­bered for, well, noth­ing really.

But if the Producer can be king, then his god very well may be the writer. If 2004 was the year of Jude Law (I ? Huckabees, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alfie, The Aviator) and 2006, Steve Carell (40 Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Season 2&3 of The Office), then 2008 may very well be the year of Seth Rogen, and it’s delight­fully naughty to see him get ready for it right now. Perhaps it is the lore behind his suc­cesses that makes him so fas­ci­nat­ing to me, or maybe the fact that at a mere 2 years older than myself, he has starred in two 1 come­dies in the same sum­mer hav­ing penned one of them. Even as a kid actor on “Freaks & Geeks”, one could then the hid­den tal­ent being held back by this bud­ding star. His role on that ill-fated tele­vi­sion was small, but we saw an uncom­pro­mis­ing hon­esty that would become his trade­mark in the episode he learns his girl­friend was born a hermaphrodite.

Now, hav­ing been nur­tured and indoc­tri­nated in Apatow-land, we see a screen­play he has been sit­ting on since those child act­ing days. As far as writ­ing goes, it’s harder to find bet­ter dia­logue than that offered up in “Superbad”. It’s raunchy and it’s unre­lentig but any teacher worth a city’s pit­tance will agree to it’s accu­racy in the realm of male teen con­vers­ing. During the films best moments, which are shared by stars Michael Cera and Jonah Hill, the script has the snappy clever setups of “Clerks”. The mag­netic north of the script still may be Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless” inas­much as it takes the oth­er­wise over­looked intel­lec­tual nature of it’s main char­ac­ters extremely seri­ously. This is a com­par­i­son I do not make lightly, as I con­sider Heckerling’s script to be one of the best con­tri­bu­tions to writ­ing in the 1990s. These boys do not inhabit the same world as their mostly older audi­ence (it’s R), but Rogen, and I must of course note his writ­ing part­ner Evan Goldberg, man­ages to rope us in.

All that finally being said, I would actu­ally like to talk about the film.

Like much else in the Apatow library, boys are the cen­tral char­ac­ters in act 1 and by act 3 our pro­tag­o­nists have fig­ured a way to turn into men. Somewhere along the way it became accept­able to snub women of any mean­ing­ful roles in these films (I did say the next Spielberg, right). Now, I’m not say­ing that the women must be the cen­tral char­ac­ters here, but in many films of a sim­i­lar nature, the female char­ac­ters often have a say in their own des­ti­na­tion. But here, as in “Portnoy’s Complaint”, they remain far from our purview as any­thing more than recep­ti­cles. There is much more to say on this topic, but I’ll leave it at this: This is a guy’s movie and Rogen/Mottola/Apatow see no rea­son to include strong char­ac­ters of the fairer sex.

That said, the ladies can still go out in droves to these films because the bal­ance is set by fem­i­niz­ing our heroes. These guys have feel­ings, and they tend to talk about them a lot. Even they can see through their own machismo and seem on a quest from the get-go to under­stand it, rather than con­quer it. They seek an intel­lec­tual end, not a phys­i­cal one. Seth and Evan, our aptly named high school seniors, find it would be excit­ing to get both drunk and laid in the same night, though it seems as though nei­ther really is clear where the upside is in this sit­u­a­tion. Our friendly neigh­bor­hood cops, the older ver­sions of the young fiends, spend a night try­ing to impress Fogell a.k.a. McLovin as they toil through quarter-life crises. Along with their badges, they wear their feel­ings right there on their sleeves.

So where besides the writ­ing does this movie suc­ceed? Critics around the coun­try seem unan­i­mous about Michael Cera’s being one of the film’s strong points. I have to agree. He does dead­pan that would make Buster Keaton jeal­ous. But he’s still play­ing George Michael Bluth basi­cally. One can only get so many roles that way.

And finally, because it is hard to find these days, use of tem­po­ral space. This film hap­pens in a sin­gle night, for which rea­son I’d add “American Graffiti” to the list of indre­di­ents that baked this cake. The action is con­stantly mov­ing for­ward even though the stakes are very low. There is no sense that this is the last night of their lives, as is the case in so many (great) teen movies. The tim­ing is spot on and there are some very nice scenes comed­ically, includ­ing a stain that should join the ranks of Cameron Diaz’s hair gel as a clas­sic bit of prop humor.

Look, I don’t think men have really changed all that much over the years, but our onscreen per­sonas get tweaked every now and again. It all depends on what sells, and I promise that Apatow films sell big. In the 1970s we were ruggedly hand­some and in the 1980s we had rip­pling mus­cles, while in the 1990s we seemed to win out with intellect.

And now. Well now we’re vir­gins. And all four quan­drants are lov­ing us.