McLovin It

Though it comes out this Friday, I've already seen the new movie Superbad. I caught it at a sneak preview during Comic-Con, with members of the cast and creative team in attendance. (Which you'd think might be a plus, except that people always ask really dumb shit during celebrity Q&As, and shout even dumber shit at them when they walk into a movie theater.)

Superbad really feels like two movies rolled into one. The first 15 minutes sets up two "best friend" characters, and the hanger-on character of Fogell, who (according to his fake ID) is also known as "McLovin." After that, the two friends and McLovin part ways, each going into their own separate movies that don't really interact again in any way until the last 10 minutes.

The McLovin portion of the movie, that involves him getting picked up by a pair of "cool" cops and proceeding on a series of crazy adventures, is laugh-out-loud crazy hysterical. Funniest thing I've seen since Hot Fuzz. Maybe funnier. It's absolutely great. If any film in the "teen comedy" genre has ever appealed to you, you will absolutely love McLovin.

Trouble is, they keep cutting back to this other movie starring the two best friends. And that movie kind of sucks. Which pains me to say, because one of the friends is played by Michael Cera of the incomprehensibly funny series Arrested Development. And he's not bad in this, really -- it's just that the material kinda blows. Or maybe anything would look pretty lame next to McLovin. In any case, half of Superbad is the part you're forced to sit through to see the other half of Superbad. Which I guess makes the movie title completely appropriate: half the movie is super; the other half is bad.

Overall, I think I give the movie something like a B-. But again, with the recommendation that you simply have to see the McLovin movie that's buried inside this other movie. Maybe that means you wait for the DVD and then watch it by skipping every other chapter. Whatever it takes -- just go see McLovin.