Adventureland

Greg Mottola comes back for his next movie since Superbad for a movie that could be called Superbad 2 since this feels just like the first. Our main character James Brennon, played Jesse Eisenberg, has just graduated from college and is planning on moving to New York City for Graduate school when his parents drop the news that they are not making as much money and needs to work at the local amusement park to save up money for school.

Adventureland, run by Bobby and his wife Paulette, played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, hire Brennan after a long arduous look for a job. The characters that work in this park are the outsiders of your typical school group. Think Freaks and Geeks but a movie instead of your television series. This is where the movie really starts to roll and get the hook of this film.

The first we meet is Tommy Frigo, played by Matt Bush, who was Brennan’s friend from the fourth grade who constantly punches him in the balls. But Joel, played by Martin Star, becomes Brennan’s new best friend who went to college for Russian Literature and Slavic Languages, but is truly the nerd of all nerds but is also Brennan’s voice of reason. Ryan Reynolds plays the opposite of Joel as your typical cool mechanic that is a musician, Mike Connell. Connell is very much Brennan’s devil to Joel’s angel.

Kristen Stewart plays Em, Brennan’s love interest once she saves him from getting stabbed by a knife. While Joel thinks that Em is the best person Connell pushes Brennan more towards Lisa P, Margarita Levieva, the popular, hot dancer.

Brennan is very much like Michael Cera’s character but much later, pushing the thought that Mottola writes himself into these movies. Jesse Eisenberg really plays a great version of Cera’s character as a believe-able fish out of water virgin nerd. The romance between Stewart and Eisenberg is very well played and actually takes center stage to this movie.

Breaking your typical roles as the girl being timid, Stewart plays a very sexual being while Eisenberg is the virgin. This movie is very much a movie that wants to be an indie movie but only plays to the trend of making indie movies popular. The sound track to this movie is straight out of the 80’s, given it’s set in 1987, but this movie is riddled with some of the best, and worst music, of the time period. Amadeus is played the most throughout this movie and was joked about in the movie but also references Judas Priest and the crazy fads of the 1980’s.

If you’re not interested in watching the new Fast and Furious movie, and enjoyed Superbad, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared this movie is definitely a movie you’d enjoy. Though, keep in mind, this movie’s comedy is much more subtle than that of Superbad, I would highly recommend this movie. Overall, this movie is brilliant and gets a 8.5 out of 10.