Superbad is a comedy aimed at the teenage demographic, focusing on sex, smut, bumping uglies, doing the dirty, making that special love cuddle etc.
It sounds crude and, trust me, in places the language is delightfully coarse and the observations made about sex, masturbation and the courting of lovely young women by hapless, clueless gentlemen come thick and fast, mostly prematurely because by the time the film reaches an hour in length, directer Judd Apatow realises that he has to advance his plot. The film works more for me when it's just plain crude but the overtly sexual parts needed a sensetive counterpart to make the film work, much like Seth and Evan are dependent on each other despite being really quite different.
Superbad will inevitbaly be compared with the modern forefather of all teen comedies, the incomparable American Pie (strictly the first one only) and while the films can be seen as very similar (replace a pie with drawings of dicks, for example, for the crudest, cringe-worthy moment of both films respectively), I think that Superbad is a film that a lot of teenagers will be able to identify with.
American Pie was merely a voyeur, albeit a hilarious one. Although group leader Kevin made his speech about "the next step" and Oz - the insensitive, "dumb jock" stereotype - discovers the pleasure of actually getting to know and connact with a woman, American Pie is mostly hysterical car-crash comedy, each gross-out or embarrassing scene follows another and doubles your previous laughs. I found myself not really caring about the characters and their well-being because we had been positioned in such a detached way to the characters of American Pie and, in all honesty, I think we knew that everybody in American Pie would get laid. After all, the characters are good-looking enough for the big-screen.
Superbad, however, puts two very awkward characters under its spotlight. Evan is a very sensitive, thoughtful guy and quite often will get bumped into in the corridor as if he barely exists. You get the impression that Michael Cera doesn't just play the role of Evan - he IS Evan. In recent teen-flick Juno, Cera repeats his shy, awkward teen routine and almost perfects it. His partner-in-crimne, Seth, however, is a loud, obnoxious, overtly sexual boy with a couple of pretty large, obvious chips on his shoulder; he didn't get into the same, prestigious college as his best friend and he is also quite large; his white t-shirt strains over his swelling body, with a picture of a black comedian on the front expected to distract us from Seth's body and instead focus on something else.
The growing up, growing apart subtext of the film is barely a subtext, such is its obvious position in the film. Outsiders seem mildly surprised that Evan and Seth, that dorky duo who skulk around in the intimidating shadows of High School, will finally part ways. The two of them each try to convince everybody, their counter-part and even themselves that they don't care about their changing dynamics, but the audience know all too well about what is happening. After all, many of the audience will have already been through their awkward teen years and another large proportion of the audience are going through their growing pains and certainly many of those people will be able to relate to the horrible, unavoidable scenario of having to accept life and the changes that it throws at you.
Evan and Seth end up, somewhat fortuitously, being responsible for providing the alcohol for a High School graduation party. They enlist their half-loved, half-hated friend Fogle, who will forever be remembered as a cult-classic character: McLovin - the twenty-five year old, Hawaiian organ-donor. The rest of the film charts some wacky antics as the three boys stumble blindly through one situation after another, and we urge them through. We engage with these characters who are genuinely good at heart; we acknowledge their insecurities and relate to them. The plot is far-fetch'd, but such is the beauty of Superbad; the original script was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their thirteen year old incarnations. What Superbad is, in essence, is the fantasies, desires, eccentricities and insecurities of two teenage boys, blown-up on the big screen for everyone to see. So when McLovin befriends two immature cops, one of them played by Seth Rogen, you find yourself forgiving the silly plot and instead enjoying the ride that McLovin goes on with the police, and the other various symbolic journeys that take place through the film, charting some sort of maturing process.
Superbad is also refreshingly realistic. I found the moment when Evan is frantically trying to get himself drunk in order to sleep with his crush, Becca, actually quite touching; the vodka he tries to bolt just refuses to stay down out of both its awful taste and Evan's reluctance to engage in a one night stand with a girl he really likes. There isn't a neatly packaged, all's well style of ending either. If you don't find the ending scene a little heartbreaking, what I say to you is watch the film again. Their future's are still in doubt and although they may be a little more comfortable with the idea of parting ways, they still look longingly to their idyllic pasts.
So using American Pie as a yard-stick, Superbad does measure up as a film that is definitely not Super-bad and can be considered as one of the all-time great teen movies up there with The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and American Pie One. If you ever felt out-of-place in your teen years, if you ever masturbated to something slightly odd or if you simply want to stay outside and play for just one more hour, then Superbad is the film for you to watch.