The intrinsic beauty of Greg Mottola's "Superbad" is its flow, a movie paced like a hip-hop track, one whose lines--written in a semi-biopic way by funnymen Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg--are delivered with verbal atrocity and cool rigor making this one of the funniest movies ever.
It's a movie which cheats in sustaining excellence by lining up hectic events after hectic events. It all starts when two co-dependent high school seniors--Seth and Evan, whom the writers named after themselves, played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera respectively--plan to go all out at their final graduation party. How? By providing the booze. But guess what? They're underage. So they convince another buddy of theirs, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to get a fake ID and be the buyer. You can see where this is going. From here on now, chaos ensues. Chaos which I will not spoil because this movie is worth seeing for oneself.
What I will discuss, though, is the element which ties it all together and keeps the ride bumpy but also interesting--the chemistry between Seth and Evan. Evan got into Dartmouth College, he is more of an introvert, a guy who doesn't pick fights and just wants to have a good time. And then there's Seth. He is an eclectic, energetic mastermind who does most of the brainwork. They both want the same thing but is the difference in their approach that keeps this fresh.
I don't know how much of themselves writers Rogen and Goldberg poured into these two characters, but they are outcasts. And while Evan looks like he's at the acceptance stage of his societal situation, Seth's fervor is unquenchable. So much so, in fact, that he is willing to steal to get his way. It's peer pressure put on himself, by himself. The way Rogen and Goldberg succumb their characters into troubles brought on by adolescent woes only makes their comeback more triumphant.
But is this a coming of age movie? I don't think so. It's too brief and too funny for that. Besides the many existential questions brought on with maturity, the movie is also more bothered to make fun of itself in an attempt at peer recognition. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that because it works--I laughed and now I think Seth and Evan are cool.
It's a movie which cheats in sustaining excellence by lining up hectic events after hectic events. It all starts when two co-dependent high school seniors--Seth and Evan, whom the writers named after themselves, played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera respectively--plan to go all out at their final graduation party. How? By providing the booze. But guess what? They're underage. So they convince another buddy of theirs, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to get a fake ID and be the buyer. You can see where this is going. From here on now, chaos ensues. Chaos which I will not spoil because this movie is worth seeing for oneself.
What I will discuss, though, is the element which ties it all together and keeps the ride bumpy but also interesting--the chemistry between Seth and Evan. Evan got into Dartmouth College, he is more of an introvert, a guy who doesn't pick fights and just wants to have a good time. And then there's Seth. He is an eclectic, energetic mastermind who does most of the brainwork. They both want the same thing but is the difference in their approach that keeps this fresh.
I don't know how much of themselves writers Rogen and Goldberg poured into these two characters, but they are outcasts. And while Evan looks like he's at the acceptance stage of his societal situation, Seth's fervor is unquenchable. So much so, in fact, that he is willing to steal to get his way. It's peer pressure put on himself, by himself. The way Rogen and Goldberg succumb their characters into troubles brought on by adolescent woes only makes their comeback more triumphant.
But is this a coming of age movie? I don't think so. It's too brief and too funny for that. Besides the many existential questions brought on with maturity, the movie is also more bothered to make fun of itself in an attempt at peer recognition. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that because it works--I laughed and now I think Seth and Evan are cool.