Adventureland was written and directed by Greg Mottola, he who helmed the much-beloved Superbad, and I suspect people will want to see it because of that connection. But it’s not a broad and raunchy laughfest. Rather, it’s a modest, semi-autobiographical–albeit R-rated–comedy/drama about one of those transformative summers in a young person’s life.
In this case the young person is a joint-smoking college grad (Jesse Eisenberg), circa 1987, who, when his dad is downsized at work, finds his post-college plans in limbo and is forced take a job at the title amusement park near Pittsburgh. He befriends workers both bitter and oddball and falls hard for a girl (Kristen Stewart) who’s having an affair with the park’s thirtyish repair man (Ryan Reynolds).
For sure there are laugh-out-loud moments. Like the guy who keeps punching Eisenberg in the crotch, or pretty much any time Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig show up as the park’s cheapskate husband and wife owners. They scare off hostile patrons with baseball bats, decide to fry up spoiled corn dogs and glue eye patches onto stuffed bananas because they’re out of googly eyes.
I think you’ll chuckle more often than bust a gut, though, or maybe merely roll your eyes like I did in the film’s second half as we suffer scenes of Eisenberg and Stewart feeling betrayed and emotionally tortured and confused and blah, blah, blah. Such angst is what a lot of young people experience, I realize, but that doesn’t mean I like watching it.
Eisenberg (The Education of Charlie Banks) performs yet another variation on the socially-awkward, Russian book-reading intellectual he’s played so often, and though he isn’t bad at it by any means, I wish he’d find something different to do. This despite getting some great lines, like telling said crotch-puncher, “I hate you with such fervor.”
I’m not sure what it is I don’t like about Stewart (Twilight). She cries and pouts convincingly enough and for sure does a better job here than in that overblown teenage vampire drama. But, much like Julia Stiles in any film, I never found her anything less than annoying.
Better and funnier is Martin Starr, the lone Freaks and Geeks alum in the supporting cast, as one of Eisenberg’s colleagues. He strikes just the right amusing note of resignation at doing, as his pipe-smoking character puts it, “the work of pathetic lazy morons.” And in his desperation to keep a girl from dumping him because she’s Catholic and he’s Jewish, he brands himself an “existential pagan.”
I also liked the way Reynolds refreshingly restrains his sarcastic nature and creates something close to a real human being, though one you may not like. This leads me to his and Eisenberg’s brief discussion of singer Lou Reed‘s “Satellite of Love,” which opens the film, and allows me to mention the excellent ’80s tunes on the soundtrack. If you don’t like the movie, at least you can enjoy the music. – [DVD]
Comedy/Drama/Romance
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 8/25/09
[...] ADVENTURELAND [...]