Greg Mottola

Apatow guy who directed Superbad and worked on Undeclared.

Superbad (2007) -- Among the Apatow-produced comedies, this is a weaker entry--though all my college students would disagree. If you've never seen a teen comedy before then this might be okay, but this one doesn't seem to offer anything different. It's still just about getting fake IDs, impressing the girl, leaving for college, etc. But it's not just the unoriginality of the content that's bothersome. The real problem is the tangents. Most of the movie is spent riding around with two cops that have nothing to do with the story. There seems to be a setup for a story (if a typical one), but then it gets loss for something less interesting. And there are things that could be interesting in the movie: namely the odd teen homoeroticism. The fat kid clearly has a crush on his friend and has some sort of twisted obsession with penises, from drawing them obsessively to needing to see them inside vaginas in order to get turned on. (The non-fat kid also has a funny personality, but he's not on screen enough.) But these things are played for cheap jokes instead of adding to a psychology that could actual produce a deeper humor. In the end, cheap jokes is all we get, and there are quite a few. If you still like curse words or kids saying the word "cock" or whatever, then you'll be fine with this.