It’s always nice when the studios save us a penny for tribute at the end of the busy summer movie season. The Apatow Dynasty delivers again with Superbad, a small film (relatively) that delivers big laughs (literally) with solid writing and a talented cast of mostly unknowns. Whether your senior year in high school is a mere memory or is that thing in the windshield you’re quickly speeding up on, the down to Earth hilarity of three down on their luck guys preoccupied with girls and booze will surely appeal to the 18-year-old in all of us.



Written by Knocked Up star Seth Rogen with life-long friend Evan Goldberg, Superbad follows the coincidentally named Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) as they embark to loose their virginity in the waning days of high school before they head off for different colleges. A party at the house of a girl named Jules (Emma Stone) sounds promising, and like a gentleman, Seth offers to provide the alcohol. But how do two teenagers get liquor in the ‘burbs? Answer: fake id. Like the fake id of the boys’ good friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who has a faux Hawaiian driver’s license sporting the unlikely alias “McLovin”. Fogell (or McLovin) ends up on a wild ride with two out-of-control cops (Rogen and SNL’s Bill Hader), while Seth and Evan seek alcohol through other means.



That’s more or less the plot breakdown; short, simple and to the point. The sweet secret to Superbad’s success is its genuine characterization and unabashed look at male adolescence in all its raunchy, off-colour glory. To call the language in this movie spicy would be something of an understatement. I remember watching Vietnam War movies as a kid and being caught off guard by all the bad language in them, but at least that was a brutal, soul-crushing war. In all seriousness though, it sounds real. Ride any bus, go to any mall and listen to teenage boys when they talk and you’ll hear shades of McLovin and the gang.



The cast is great and it’s hard to imagine that the main players won’t someday take their mark at the forefront of Hollywood comedy alongside new legends like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller and the Wilson Brothers. Hill has been doing some great supporting work in films like Accepted and Knocked Up and he hits his first at bat as the lead out of the park. Cera backs him up well, but anyone aware of the Brampton, Ontario native’s work on Arrested Development knows of his masterful use of the uncomfortable pause. The real discovery though is Mintz-Plasse, who owns as the incident-prone Fogell from trying to pass himself off as McLovin to drinking it up with the cops to nearly scoring with his crush Nicola (Aviva).



The comedy of Superbad is raw, honest and real. The actors, although not literally high school age, are not obviously twentysomethings trying to fake it, which typifies the usual fakeness that Hollywood, high school movies are known for, and that makes Superbad an even more special film.



This will surely go down in history as one of the better teen comedies, blissfully, not even a little self-absorbed for how it seems to go out of its way to show the warts of teen life as opposed to hiding them. Sure, some of the situations are a little out there, believability-wise, but with a good heart and great one-liners, it doesn’t matter. Superbad is the most winning comedy of the summer, if not the year so far. Assuming you like your comedy salty then you’re in for a heck of treat.