Movies of the Week
Superbad, The Invasion
See it or skip it? The week's new releases By David Balzer
Superbad
Believe the buzz: Superbad is probably the comedy of the year—that is, if Knocked Up, the summer’s other hyper-acclaimed Judd Apatow production, isn’t. Superbad’s guyish puerility might, indeed, be more tolerable than Knocked Up’s: here are actual boys, not man-boys, whose notions of sex, dating and friendship seem charmingly, embarrassingly hopeful, rather than cynical, pat or even cruelly defiant. The script, co-written by Knocked Up lead Seth Rogen, is tighter and the narrative a simple, dependably engaging teen monomyth: Seth (Knocked Up’s Jonah Hill), Evan (Arrested Development’s Michael Cera), and Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) go in search of booze, with the aid of a hilariously bad fake I.D., in order to impress some girls they want to get with. Many of the situations that follow are reminiscent of those in a dozen other films, but Superbad’s tone tends to take the high road (on, granted, a ridiculously crass journey). Its characters speak with witty yet utterly convincing self-deprecation; its gross-outs and anecdotes are memorably creative, building one on top of the other to a fully satisfying climax. Superbad does have its problems—like Knocked Up, for instance, it’s overlong. Then there’s that niggling, wet-blanket question sparked by most things Apatow touches: what would it take for Hollywood to make a successful comedy in which young women are given as much of the bawdy, comic agency as young men usually are? SEE IT NOW
Superbad is now playing at the Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond St. W.), Rainbow Cinemas Fairview Mall (1800 Sheppard Ave. E.), AMC Winston Churchill 24 (2081 Winston Park Dr.) and others.
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