SUPERBAD review

Apatow here serves only as producer, but his fingerprints rest all over a picture that features a number of comedic talents he’s helped foster over long stretches.  The film was written by newly-minted star Seth Rogen along with Evan Goldberg (writing partners on “Da Ali G Show” and the upcoming Apatow production The Pineapple Express) and co-stars Knocked Up alums Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, and Rogen himself.

Superbad splits it focus between longtime best friends Seth (Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) and hanger-on Fogell (newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as they work their way toward a graduation bash attended by the respective girls of their dreams.  Getting there is most of the fun in Superbad, as Seth and Evan wind their way through a seedy adult party and an honestly-portrayed schism in their relationship while Fogell (McLovin per his fake ID, a gag featured in the film’s rather hilarious trailers which winds up taken to ridiculously enjoyable heights) ends up riding along with two unhinged local cops (Hader and Rogan).

Within a very simple structure, Superbad mines an uproarious amount of laughter thanks largely to its game cast.  Hill and Cera and Hader, Rogen, and Mintz-Plasse play so well off one another within their respective tandems it’s not hard to imagine director Greg Mottola (a TV comedy vet) sweating it out in an editing booth, attempting to encapsulate what were surely hours worth of improvised takes into a sane runtime.  The gags come so fast and furious whole exchanges were literally muted by laughter during the screening we caught.

Hill and Cera (George Michael on Fox’s tragically broomed “Arrested Development”), front-and-center for much of the picture, play awkward to extremes but still retain real emotion in their interactions.  Their character types aren’t the trailblazing sort – horny, alienated teenagers – so it’s a tribute to both actors they wind up really humanizing Seth and Evan by the picture’s end.  Beyond names, whether their arcs share any similarity to teenage experiences of writers Goldberg and Rogen remains a mystery.

Something Superbad manages to get right that helps both align it with its teen sex comedy forebears and endear it to audiences is that all its characters appear to be from normal, working-class backgrounds.  No lavish mansions, no Astin-Martins as graduation gifts – these are average kids with average clothes in average cars from average homes.  To the characters in Superbad “sexy” is simple – a refreshing thing to see.

By giving us something so good in a familiar package, perhaps the best gag Superbad pulls is to help reinforce fond memories of a subgenre (and maybe a time – high school years) which really wasn’t all that fun in the first place.  Though it’s unlikely they set out to prove it, the filmmakers have shown the old chestnut that tragedy plus time equals comedy as true.

It’s kind of wonderful that two intelligent, dirty comedies appear poised to have conquered the box office this summer.  This is no small feat, and it signals more to come from Apatow and friends down the line.  The funniest mainstream American comedy to come along since Borat, Superbad transcends its roots to become a wholly involving, genuinely emotional film featuring more sketches of giant cocks replacing figures in historic American scenes that you can shake a stick at.