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Title: Superbad
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A wise friend of mine once told me that tasteless humor is, at it’s core, not funny. No matter how many times you burp, fart, vomit, or curse, if it’s this is done tastelessly it’s not funny. Of course these things are almost never funny in real life, but I think this statement actually is very true when you apply it to the movies. I never completely got why many people consider Adam Sandler films to be funny. Nothing funny happens in them. They’re just Adam Sandler being obnoxious around characters, normally doing things to characters that would not garner many laughs in real life. I bring this up because chances are if you’ve seen the previews to “Superbad” you may be thinking this is just a collection of crude jokes that are there to make you laugh at other peoples expense.
In some sense this is accurate, but in a very surreal way. The movie stars two high school kids named Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill), who are in their final days of high school and getting ready for college. Both Evan and Seth know that high school is coming to an end, and both know that they have one last chance to lose their virginity before they graduate from high school. The difference between the two is that while Evan has his eyes set on pretty girl Becca, Seth doesn’t mind which girl he gets, just so long as he gets a girl. Though, as every high school student knows, the only way to get with a girl is to be invited to a school party, something neither of the two boys have been invited to in the last three years. But low and behold, before they know it they do get invited to a high school party, and if they can swipe some booze they may even be the life savers of the party.
With a fake ID proved by their friend Fogell (with the phoney name of McLovin on it), the guys figure out the best way to get into a girls pants is to get a girl drunk (because, really, the girl may not be thinking clear enough to know what she’s doing, or who she’s doing what with). Well, since this is a high school sex comedy you can probably imagine that this plan goes horribly off-kilter, with two insane cops get involved, the boys accidently going to more then one party, and they even manage to throw in a Star Wars reference. I’m telling you, whenever a film makes it where the characters feel like they’re being tossed around in a washing machine I’m always impressed when it manages to find a way to squeeze in a Star Wars reference. It’s just so...well, never mind, let’s get back to what I said earlier in the review about how tasteless humor is rarely funny. That holds up true in this movie. The vomiting, the cursing, the spitting...it’s all here, and none of it’s funny.
Not really anyway. If I laughed at these things, they were laughs of discomfort. Because...well, when you’re uncomfortable you have to do something right? And laughing is certainly better then chocking on my Skittles. So in this sense, “Superbad” has many of the elements that made “The Last American Virgin,” “Porky’s,” and “Revenge of the Nerds” wildly popular for the fifteen minutes it took for their fifteen minutes of fame. Yet “Superbad” also gets a human element that is rare in sex comedies these days. Let’s start with the language, which is very strong in this movie (especially in the first one hundred and fifteen minutes or so). Though vulgar and unfunny, the language is actually very true in the sense that some high schoolers talk this way. Not only do they talk this way, they curse so casually, making up curse words that are so absurd, that there is no way they can possibly understand the power or meaning behind the words they say.
In fact, there are time when there is no real meaning in the words at all, and the words are said just in a way that makes the characters feel smarter for using them then they actually are. The anxiety the boys feel about being left out on having sex before they leave high school is also very real, which will most likely make audience members who went through this sort of experience themselves want to give the characters on screen some life experience advice. You know you’re involved with well defined characters when you, as a human being, want to give them some advice. The final nice touch is how the women are treated in this film. Now this is above all else a movie made from the male perspective.
Let’s not even pretend this movie is going to show both perspectives, because it doesn’t. What it does do is have the boys experience their first real taste of what a woman can be first hand. Not through anything physical, but just by talking to them. Yes the woman are sex objects to the boys for most of the movie, but when they actually sit down and talk to the girls they are aiming to get with, they are shocked to discover real people underneath that beautiful skin. Real people who have feelings. Dare I say it, this seems to be the first time the boys realize that women are people too. What’s more, they are shocked to realize these girls can be their friends, a concept that never really registered with them before. “Superbad” is not an excellent movie, but it is a very good one. It actually takes time to know and understand the characters in the movie, and give understanding to their motivations and feelings.
The movie is funny in the sense that it’s realistic, even relatable to a certain extent. It’s also funny because these kids, through all their schemes and bright ideas, show that they really are just kids. They are kids who are becoming adults, going into an adult world, and they honestly don’t have a clue about how things really work. That makes “Superbad” both funny and sad, but mostly funny due to a well thought out ending. The genuine laughs therefor are not the result of tasteless humor, but by the consequences of tasteless behavior, and the knowledge that these boys will look back on this experience with confusion at what they were even thinking when they are older and wiser. By the end of the night these boys may be hung over, but they will have learned much about women and life, and as a result they may even be ready to face the future as men.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -