Superbad

**.5/****     SUPERBAD (R)

Seth Rogen is well-known for his supporting work in the television comedies Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, as well as his role in Judd Apatow’s 2005 comedy The 40-Year Old Virgin and this year’s Apatow helmed film Knocked Up. But Rogen is also an Emmy-nominated writer, having worked as a staff writer on Undeclared and Sacha Baron Cohen’s satirical television series for HBO, Da Ali G Show. There, Rogen got the chance to work on the staff with his childhood friend Evan Goldberg. The duo would later go on to collaborate on the screenplay for Superbad, a 2007 comedy produced by Apatow.

Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) are two socially-inept best friends just weeks away from their high school graduation, which will force the two friends to separate from each other in order to attend different colleges. Both desire to have girlfriends for the summer before they head off to school, with each eyeing a particular classmate as their potential love interest. Seth’s crush Jules (Emma Stone) invites them to a party at her house, with Seth agreeing to supply the party with alcohol.

Seth talks awkward teenager Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) into using his fake-ID at a nearby convenience store in order to illegally obtain the drinks for the party, but an incident at the store results in Fogell leaving with police officers Slater (Bill Hader) and Michaels (Rogen). Still not wanting to disappoint their prospective girlfriends, Evan and Seth begin a wild chase after their needed alcohol, but several disastrous mishaps along the way threaten to destroy their lifelong friendship.

A throwback-style teen sex comedy, Superbad packs with it more laughter than any of Apatow’s previous films, but lacks the overall emotional depth to the characters that made The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up standout comedies. Like George Lucas’s American Graffiti or Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, the entire movie takes place over the course of one day and one night, but Superbad doesn’t utilize its ensemble nearly as well as those films, and worries more about delivering constant one-liners than it does connecting all of the plot strands.

Directed by Greg Mottola (TV’s Arrested Development, TV’s The Comeback), it doesn’t take long for the movie to establish its comedic rhythm, easily becoming one of the funniest movies of the year. The strongest moments in the picture are found in the friendship and misadventures experienced by Evan and Seth, while the subplot involving Fogell and police officers Slater and Michaels serves primarily as a setback, filling too much time with sideshow antics that take the focus away from the more interesting story.

Cera (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, TV’s Arrested Development) and Hill (Evan Almighty, 10 Items or Less) create an exceptional on-screen chemistry with each other, and their inferior acting abilities are easily masked by the hilarious dialogue they are afforded. Their love interests played by Stone (TV’s Drive) and Martha MacIsaac (Ice Princess) are also worth mentioning, although they are so weakly developed that Evan and Seth’s obsession with two seems slightly disturbing and sexist.

A raunchy and coarse high school tale, Superbad gets by thanks to the consistent laughter it provides alongside of a sweet story about male friendship.