Watch the beginning, watch the end, but skip through most of it

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2008)

This could have been a very sweet, very realistic movie about two high school kids moving into the next stage of their lives and potentially losing their friendship. The two main characters had great chemistry together, and when the movie focused on that, it is at its best and funniest.
This describes the first and last roughly-fifths of the movie. The remainder, unfortunately, is unbelievably stupid and ridiculous. The crux of the problem is two policemen, one played by the co-writer, Seth Rogan, who seem to have popped in from a cartoon movie. They wave their guns around in the middle of unarmed, non-violent crowds; they drink beers, in public, on-duty; they take shots at roadsigns; they do doughnuts in their car in a parking lot and end up deliberately setting fire to the vehicle. And this goes on and on and on. What the hell?
Michael Cera, as in "Arrested Development", has the great, sweet ability to deliver any line with that slightly embarrassed, gawky demeanor that lets the script get away with a lot.
Jonas Hill, unfortunately, was saddled with one of those characters whose unlikeable qualities (almost continuously insulting his friends in a shouty, whiny tone) more than overbalanced any extenuating circumstances (so Cera is moving in with his other friend with whom he's going to college? And?). This kind of character is surprisingly common in sophomoric comedies (see Napoleon Dynamite) and, without being able to like, respect or sympathise with, makes it very difficult to watch.
Judd Apatow told the same story, much better, in Freaks and Geeks, and, though he isn't the writer, seems to have run the well dry at this point.
I am obliged to add that my wife thoroughly enjoyed the montages of penis drawings over the end credits, though.