Film: Superbad

Following weeks of hype and rave reviews I was expecting Superbad to be something more than just a puerile teenage comedy. The 70’s kitsch opening titles, parodying the I-Pod adverts, was certainly a good starting point but everything after that left me more than just a little disappointed.

The film comes from the team that bought us ‘The 40-Year Old Virgin’ and ‘Knocked Up’ and features three nerdy sexually-frustrated high school students. Seth, Evan and Fogell, keen to impress on their peers just how cool they can be, set about procuring alcohol to impress girls. I’d love to say that the writers have a vastly more intricate script but it really is that one-dimensional.

Seth (Jonah Hill) is one of the least likeable characters with few morals and zero standards. He’s quite prepared to risk death to have sex and believes that getting girls drunk will force them to make errors of judgement allowing him and his friends into their beds. “We could be that mistake!” he exclaims. Evan (Michael Cera), despite being Seth’s best friend, displays a charming quality by trying to impart sensible advice whilst avoiding confrontation. It’s a difficult balance trying to keep his friends happy and impress his beau and he’s constantly battling all sides. Here is where the heart of the film lies but unfortunately the directors have allowed it to be bludgeoned by the others antics. King of the geeks is Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who manages to draw the most laughs as he gets himself a fake ID and ends up taking a wild ride with two bad cops, one of whom is actor/writer Seth Rogen, who are keen to have nothing but a good time with their new buddy.

The constant Hollywood barrage of films featuring ugly men and beautiful women has never been displayed in such poor contrast as here. How we’re expected to believe the pairings is beyond me and immediately throws any credibility out of the window. Having said that, credibility was never likely to be part of this film’s blueprint, with the target audience being of such limited scope.

Superbad is mainly all about substituting profanity for jokes - believe it or not, there are 186 uses of the F-word. It’s crying out for a sequence of humour without any crude content but unfortunately the only respite we get is brief glimpses of Evan, minus Seth, trying to extricate him from difficult situations, and the idiotic cops trying to prove just how stupid they can really be. I’m afraid I have to report that, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, Superbad really is superbad.


© Johnskibeat

Commissioned by Local Secrets online magazine...

Gig Review: V Festival 2006, Chelmsford

This weekend I did that age-old last minute thing where your mate wins 4 complimentary weekend tickets to the V-Festival in Chelmsford and says "do you want one" and you go "yes" and then sponge a lift and go around all weekend slaughtered out of your mind spending the money that you would have spent on tickets on alcohol. RAWK.

Basically the music sucked. We knew this before we arrived because all the bands playing were a bunch of toss/not my kinda thing. But it just didn't matter. That was the thing. Nothing could have spoilt my perception because it was allllll FREE. Well, the ticket was. The rest of it was extortionate. The £10 for the programme, the £3 per pint, which involves inordinate amounts of double-queueing (for tokens, then at the bar). The £4-£7 for the half-cooked stall food. Then there's the security which is frisking and bag-searching and watching from scaffold-towers of sentineldom, plus there's no fires or shouting or running or heavy petting. But, hey, that's V for you. Think Glasto without the crusties and all the interesting bands replaced by not-so-interesting popular music bands. It's that middle-class 'shooting stool and lunchbox' kind-of festival.

The bands - well, we slit our wrists to Radiohead, we gaped at the unholy shit that is Sugarbabes. Obviously not for long. I think we saw about two songs of virtually everything before leaving in disgust. The only full sets we saw were Biffy Clyro (the only band worth going for), Ordinary Boys (lively but ultimately unfulfilling), Hard-Fi (better and more cockney than expected).

Also danced drunkenly to Fatboy Slim. Well I danced to a huge TV screen flashing various words up for about an hour before I spotted this tiny figure on top of it. Yep, it was Fatboy giving it large. The organisers had put him in a giant tent which meant only a privileged *snigger* few got to see him. Just why they felt the need to erect a fence outside to keep the fans out god only knows - we had to jump it. By the time we came out the crowd behind the fences were at least 10 deep in every direction.

The only other full set we saw was Faithless who flattered to deceive. The hits were all there but it sounded like they'd sampled them with others which was just weird.

I regret not staying for all of Paul Weller who sounded great during "Peacock Suit" and Keane who for some reason just hit the right note with me. But both times I weighed up whether a beer, piss or a burger was more important and the music lost out every time.

They'd made a real effort with the inter-crowd entertainment - there was this dancing robot. I think it was that one off that advert that turns into a car. It was proper big. And kinda scary when it came close! It was rapping and dancing and each movement was accompanied by a realistic "vvvvvsttt". I wanted one.

All this and the weather after all the scares was great. The odd blast of rain but mostly sun. I came back with a tan for crying out loud! Mind you, I also came back with mild food poisoning which sucks.

P.S.: If you want a better review you can do a lot worse than this chap.