Available now on Blu-ray and DVD
Roadshow Entertainment
For his debut feature, Superbad, director Greg Mottola told the funny as tale of one night in the lives of some loveable losers. Superbad was from a screenplay by Seth Rogen and inspired by the actor’s youth. Adventureland, Mottola’s follow-up, is about his own youthful experiences, this time unfolding over the course of a summer in the 1980s.
It’s an amusing but not laugh out loud film, perhaps because the characters here are not losers of the Superbad ilk, at least not those at the heart of the story. James (Jesse Eisenberg) has his summer plans shelved when his father’s demotion means he will have to work to pay for his move to New York to study. After several rejections, he finds himself working at Adventureland, an amusement park that is anything but for the employees.
It is here he meets and becomes smitten with Em (Kristen Stewart), a girl who has more problems than her Twilight alter ego, one of them being the park’s married electrician Mike (Ryan Reynolds) with whom she is having an affair. Of course, James doesn’t find out about this until he has well and truly fallen for her.
That’s about it as far as plot is concerned. Mottola’s aim seems to have been to capture a moment in time, if not as honestly as possible then certainly without too much embellishment. The comedy comes from the reality of the situation rather than any hi-jinx you would find in, say, Superbad. There are harsh realities of coming to terms with adulthood but they are dealt with lightly.
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