Funny in places - but needs its mouth washed out with soap

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2007)

I was a bit disappointed with this movie. The trailer was very funny. Unfortunately, they should have let the trailer-makers edit the movie because some of the lines and scenes that were so sharp in the trailer fell a bit flat in the film in their slightly longer versions.
Superbad would still be a superior movie to something like American Pie EXCEPT for the fact that it's just so pointlessly, grossly, disgusting in places. I KNOW these are high school kids; I KNOW they MAY talk like that to each other, BUT THAT ALONE DOESN'T MAKE IT FUNNY! A smart writer should be turning that foul-mouthed rubbish into something witty and insightful, not just repeating it verbatim. And having a running gag about a guy getting period blood on his leg is just not amusing unless you're drunk, under 16, or - apparently - a teen-flick maker in Hollywood today. Have some restraint, for god's sake guys!
I have to look at the common link with The 40-Year-Old Virgin - Judd Apatow. Like Superbad, that movie also really demeaned itself by indulging in some truly repulsive language and imagery early on, and therefore never really rose above that to be what it should - and could - have been: a clever, original, side-splitter.
Learn the lesson Judd - there are very few worthwhile comedies that can recover from the random, gratuitous and wholly unamusing use of the C word. After that point, the whole movie is always going to be scrambling to try to make up for itself.