Seth and Evan are best friends inseparable navigating the last weeks of high school. Usually shunned by the popular kids Seth and Evan luck into an invitation to a party and spend a long day with the help of their nerdy friend Fogell trying to score enough alcohol to lubricate the party and inebriate two girls Jules and Becca so they can kick-start their sex lives and go off to college with a summer full of experience and new skills. Their quest is complicated by Fogells falling in with two inept cops who both slow and assist the plan. If they do get the liquor to the party what then Is sex the only rite of passage at hand
Review
I enjoyed "The 40YearOld Virgin" but didn't feel it was entirely worthy of all the enormous acclaim it garnered. And for all the praise "Knocked Up" received I thought it was fairly average. So I wasn't expecting much from "Superbad." However I'd have to say it's the smartest and funniest Apatow film yet. I know he didn't direct it but his influence is distinct. And in the past I've felt indifferent towards Apatow's brand of humour but combined with Rogen's sensitivity towards the teen condition here it works really well.
People have compared it to John Hughes' better teen comedies but I don't think the approach is entirely similar. "Superbad" is cruder ruder a bit more focused on the sex & alcohol jokes. But it works really well because it captures that dynamic better than "American Pie" because it invests more care into its characters. One of the strengths of "Pie" over other films in its genre (such as say "Slackers") has always been its characters and "Superbad" similarly relies on its characters for support. Plus it's just really funny.
The performances all around are pretty funny even if the FogellMcLovin pop culture references are ruining a good joke (kind of like "Yeah baby!!" ruined Austin Powers when 20yearold frat boys around the country thought it would be funny to shout the phrase every five seconds).
Jonah Hill and Michael Cera have great chemistry and another one of the strengths of this film is that its teenage characters actually do look their age (even though Hill is in his early 20s he still passes as a senior). But it was Bill Hader and Seth Rogen who stole the show for me as the clueless cops.
Overall this is just a funny wellmade film with heart. It doesn't mock its characters or their predicaments but casts a knowing eye on the high school experience. It captures all this very well and was certainly in my opinion far superior to "Knocked Up."