I recently managed to get tickets to an early screening of Superbad, however I'm struggling with a stinking cold and I would be more of an annoyance to the rest of the audience than anything. So I asked my friend Nick to attend, and he did, kindly writing up a little review for you all. Here he is, be kind...

The Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen-produced Superbad is a hugely enjoyable end of High School film centring on three terminally nerdy pupils, Seth (Jonah Hill), Evan (Michael Cera) and Fogle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).

Each athletically-challenged boy is obsessed with getting laid but they are never invited to the happening parties, are shunned by girls and spat on by jocks. This is familiar territory, I know, but covered in a very fresh, funny and endearing way.

Fearful that they will finish school as sexual incompetents, untrained for the priapic demands of university, the boys suddenly find themselves invited to a cool party with the cool girls they most fantasise about. Sex might just be possible. The catch is that they must impress by buying alcohol for the party using Fogle’s new false I.D. card (in the name of “McLovin”, a fictional 25-year old Hawaiin organ-donor).

The movie follows the three geeks’ disastrous quest to score booze which takes them to a terrifying gang party, a bottle-shop stick up and a crazy night patrol ride with two deeply unprofessional cops (co-writer Seth Rogen and Bill Hader).

The film is peppered with much of the gross-out humour (cock jokes, menstrual blood and vomit aplenty) that features in Apatow’s splendid Knocked Up and, like that film, it’s strangely combined with great humanity and warmth. You can’t help but care about these immature misfits as they try to deal with their growing pains through cocky optimism and bad blow job jokes.

It’s also about of the end of first friendships and separation. Evan has won a place at Ivy League Dartmouth College without Seth and this is the great unspoken tension between the two. And these themes are surprisingly tenderly handled.

The three leads are beautifully played, especially the hilariously nerdy Fogle/McLovin, who frequently threatens to steal the film. But Seth and Evan are the very human, grubby yet decent core of the film. It’s a well-written, intelligent and sensitive addition to a genre that includes Animal House, American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused. Expect a lot from Apatow, Rogen et al in the future.

Review by Nick Bernie - huge thanks Nick.

UK IMDB Film Details