The movie can't decide what it's trying to do.

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2007)

The movie is a good one, a nice story with likable characters and a somewhat mature subject wrapped up in a nice, ninety-minute package. Of course, nice, likable characters wrapped up in a ninety-minute package is also why it didn't reach its full potential.
For one, the characters are unbelievable, and that's kind of big for me. Their smart, snappy remarks that were never off or unfunny were way off-base. No one who isn't a Jewish writer who gets paid big bucks to write movies and television shows could ever talk like that, let alone a scared sixteen-year-old girl who has to figure out what to do about the parasite growing in her stomach. And seriously, "honest to blog"? "Rad"? "Boss"? I literally cringed after hearing some of the director's/writers' attempts to be hip. No one talks like that. Stop forcing it. Secondly, the character development was little to none for some characters. Bleeker (Cera), who is second billed, gets his character developed so little that by the end of the movie I don't even care whether or not he and Juno get together. The duo of the Moldy Peaches song did so little for me it's not even funny. And I like Michael Cera as much as the next Arrested Development fan, but his character just seemed like an idiot who didn't know what to do. (Seriously, remember the scene where Juno is going to get the ultrasound and she obviously wants him to come but he's like 'lol OK i wont go then'? What the hell?) And that apparently sexual scene with Bateman came out of right field for me; very little character development yielded me the ability to not see that coming. Finally, it kind of seems to write off teenage pregnancy as just a little thing that can be solved pretty easily. No. Wrong. But I guess for a ninety-minute movie, it did the best it could.
Don't get me wrong, though. It's not all bad. Overall, it's cute (albeit tongue-in-cheek). It's humorous (to a point), and keeps you entertained whilst trying to keep a mature matter as light as possible. As a teen, I kind of empathized with some of the subject matter and thought the whole "jocks want goths" was pretty clever. And I loved the soundtrack. I am still humming that Moldy Peaches song.
Overall, it had some flaws, plot holes, and other such problems, but it was a cute film. It was feel-good, and for a feel-good movie, it wasn't bad.
I would see it again, so I would give it 7/10 stars.