Amazingly funny and surprisingly honest.

Rating: 9/10 (21 August 2007)

I like "smart" comedy, if you know what I mean. And, as a fan of that type of comedy, I know that it's an improper label. Most people think "smart" comedy is pretentious, dry, and over your head. Not so. The real "smart" comedy is the ability to send a decent message despite the texture (ie. sexuality; profanity, and basic vulgarity). By this criteria, anything from Clerks to The Life Aquatic to The 40-Year-Old Virgin could be considered smart. Superbad should be, as well.
Jonah Hill and Michael Cera (who got his experience playing this awkward style of character on Arrested Development) exemplify the idea of a comedic duo in their roles as two Grade 12 students looking for booze and love. While their repertoire may not have been as extensive as David Spade's and Chris Farley when they pulled off Tommy Boy, Hill and Cera converse so well on screen that you forget you're watching actors do their paying work. Their conversations, especially in the early part of the film, seem as genuine as any obscene chat you've had with any buddy of yours in the hall. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, as the extraordinarily geeky yet paradoxically cool Fogell (a.k.a. McLovin) plays uncomfortable as well as any self-conscious high school nerd, notably in the good portion of the movie when he's joyriding with police officers Michaels and Slater (screenwriter Seth Rogen and rising SNL superstar Bill Hader), who steal the movie in regards to their out-of-code behaviour and personalities. Hader owns a particular scene in a bar where, increasingly intoxicated, he explains to the simultaneously scared and wondrous Fogell why one should never pick up women in bars. Their forceful comments during the climactic party-crashing are enough to earn their way into IMDb quote books for good.
As noted in the opening paragraph, though, Superbad has a message. Evan's encounter with his drunken crush at the final party provides a firm moral dilemma not usually encountered in your average teen sex comedy, and Seth's drunkenly confessed insecurities hit home for more than a few of us. More than anything else, the film's epilogue reinforces the knowledge every high schooler should realise: not all friendships can last beyond graduation. Hard to believe this was written by students all the way back in Grade 9.
See it, and stay for the first half of the credits. I will not reveal why.