Yesterday, I went to see the movie Adventureland, a new comedy from the director of Superbad about zaniness at an amusement park.Except that's not what it's about. You'd think so from the previews, or at least I did, but this movie is actually a story of "young love" exactly in the spirit of last year's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. It was such a clone of that earlier movie, in fact, that they found a virtual clone of actor Michael Cera to play the lead role. It seems like Jesse Eisenberg must have had coaching to so perfectly channel the mannerisms of Hollywood's current gawky teen "it" guy.
Unsurprisingly, then, my reaction to the movie was a clone of what I had to Nick and Norah as well. This isn't an unfunny movie. There are some good scenes and good lines peppered throughout the piece (some spoiled in the trailer, some not). There's good acting from a lot of the cast, particularly Ryan Reynolds as the park repairman.
But there's also a lot of down time as the film tracks a love story that never fully engages. There's an over-the-top side character trying too hard to be like a Stiffler from American Pie. There's a lot of material that just feels like padding of the thin premise.
The presence of Martin Starr in the film couldn't help but make me think of the one season brilliant-but-cancelled TV series Freaks and Geeks. And that is in every conceivable way a superior treatment of the same turf this film was trying to cover. Hell, they're even both "retro," both set in the 1980s. I'd recommend checking out that series if you haven't, rather than wasting time on this movie. I rate it a C+.
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