Dispatched to buy the booze, Fogell has created a fake I.D. In George Lucas’s funny-sad paean to lost innocence, the teens sabotaged a police cruiser in Superbad, two drunken cops (Rogen and Bill Hader, a master of deadpan dementia) shoot up their own car to impress Seth and Evan’s dorky friend, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Superbad is like American Graffiti, with a crucial difference: The adults are as childlike and out of control as the children (if not more so). If teens come away with the message that booze and sex and drugs can’t buy them love (or happiness), they’ll also feel the compulsion to talk dirty, drink, fuck, and learn the lesson for themselves-as well they should, provided they don’t kill themselves doing it. Apatow and company (the director here is Greg Mottola) have a pipeline to the adolescent id and a little too much fun frolicking in its hot springs of obscenity. The same is true of Superbad, but the pretzels will have to be even twistier. Some right-wing commentators pretzeled themselves up to praise that film-which had naughty words and drugs and premarital sex but, hallelujah, came down squarely on the side of family values. The co-producer is Judd Apatow, of Knocked Up, the co-writer Seth Rogen of the same. In the course of their odyssey, they plunge into a night world of sex, drugs, and aggression in which no one’s development is unarrested. Their task is to procure alcohol, which Seth is sure will get them laid. (He shifts and stammers around the cute female classmate flashing him the tongue.) Both look to a party that evening for resolution. The more prepossessing Evan is embarrassed by his friend’s sexist ejaculations he respects women-from afar. (Think Mostel and Wilder in The Producers.) A virgin and likely to remain so for some time, Seth talks of nothing but sex-a nonstop stream of F- and P- and D-words that would make David Mamet sit up and salute. Seth (Jonah Hill) is blobby and loud Evan (Michael Cera) skinny, hysterical, and a tad girlish. Its protagonists are graduating high-school buddies swimming in hormones and uncertainty. S uperbad might be the most provocative teen sex comedy ever made it is certainly one of the most convulsively funny. Illustration by Crystal Shrimp Photo: Melissa Moseley/Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
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