QUICK HIT: Superbad (Mottola, 2007)

Superbad was considerably better than I expected when I first saw a trailer back in July. The movie begins and ends with Micheal Cera, Jonah Hill, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who play the three main characters: Seth, Even, and Fogal (aka McLovin). Each is endowed with a surprising amount of humanity. This does two things: First, it makes you care about their plight (which is multi-leveled in a way that you probably wouldn’t expect from a teen comedy). Second, it strengthens the humor by ensuring that the characters don’t turn into hormonally charged caricatures who are nothing more than vehicles for delivering dick jokes. When those dick jokes boarder on the realm of sincere gesture, well, then you know you’ve got something.

Rating: 75 

~ by Scottie Ferguson on February 13, 2008.