Superbad
(R)

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Superbad is a new comedy about one wildly screwed-up night in the lives of a couple of terminally horny and socially inept high school seniors whose co-dependence is about to come to a crashing halt because they're about to go to different colleges. Sex-obsessed and aimed squarely below the belt, the movie from The 40 Year Old Virgin producers Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson and screenwriters Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (Da Ali G Show), is unrelentingly foul-mouthed, rude, crude and vile. It's also the funniest and most big-hearted new comedy to hit multiplexes since Borat. Stripped down to bare essentials, Superbad may sound like not much more than a very late entry into that played-out genre called the "coming-of-age story." It's not like we haven't already seen the losers-do-anything-to-get-laid plotline plenty of times before. Fans of the genre will easily detect a slice of American Pie here, a little Porky's there, mashed-up with bits of early Cameron Crowe and John Hughes. But Superbad's shrewd script and the insanely good comic timing and likeability of the performers slam-dunk this one, what with Michael Cera (Arrested Development) as the smart, sweet, secretly terrified member of the duo; Jonah Hill (Knocked Up) as his dick-obsessed, motor-mouthed and increasingly desperate counterpart; and scene-stealing newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse as an über nerd who flies his freak flag high and chooses as his fake I.D. name "McLovin." They're aces, but Mintz-Plasse's hysterically funny, oddball performance should make his character an overnight pop icon. Seth Rogen and Bill Hader mine gold, too, from their roles as a sad, goofy, trigger-happy pair of cops on the kids' trail, even though they (and the movie) sag badly in the middle. Happily, the whole thing cranks up for a finale that not only raises the roof but also leaves a little lump in the throat. High school guys struggling with getting laid, identity crises, sexual panic, navigating the shores of female sexuality and the rituals of male bonding? Flipping hilarious. Thirty and 40-year-olds still struggling with this same stuff? Much less so. Take our word for it -- this crew gives teen comedy a good name again.

By Stephen Rebello

photo credit: ©2007 Columbia Pictures