Superbad

Michael Cera is true to his roots from his days as George Michael in Arrested Development playing opposite another somewhat outlandish performance by Jonah Hill (Knocked Up). Cera's extraordinary dead pan is the same typical flawlessly well-timed delivery we are used to, and he is more poignant than ever. His stoic reactions to what would seem to be emotionally intense situations are even-keel and never over done. If this kid has ever overacted a scene in his life, I have never seen it.

Hill brings much of the same that we saw in Knocked Up, with his funniest moments being points where he seemingly over-reacts to minute situations, but they might have pushed it a little too hard with him here. There were so many instances in Superbad where Hill lost his cool, it became redundant fairly quickly. This seemed to have less to do with his ability to complete a scene than it did with the director leaving too much of the same kind of material in the film. That being said, the run time also seemed a little long, as a borderline farce about high school friendship seperation anxiety and trying to score chicks on their last night out should never run close to two hours.

Of course Seth Rogen playing along side Bill Hader (SNL) stole the show, with perfectly delivered one-liners as well as noticeably long-winded improv stints bantering with Hader while playing the roles of fun-loving police officers.

Overall, the movie is worth seeing if you like the Judd Apatow strain of good-natured comedy that always seems to pick on the "loser" side of us, but shows that being yourself always prevails in the end. While Apatow did not direct this movie specifically, his fingerprints reside all over it, and that is generally a good thing.

Grade: B