★ 8 / 10
Mottola strikes one from the heart. It's 1987
John Chard
Mottola strikes one from the heart. It's 1987 and James Brennan is home for the summer after earning himself a degree in Renaissance Studies. Which…
Mottola strikes one from the heart.
It's 1987 and James Brennan is home for the summer after earning himself a degree in Renaissance Studies. Which unsurprisingly isn't any use to him when trying to gain employment in this part of Pittsburg. Which is now a problem since his planned trip to Europe has fell by the wayside due to his father's enforced unemployment. So thus he finds himself working at Adventureland, a rusting time warp amusement park where only odd balls and idiots appear to frequent. But here James will make friends, learn life lessons and maybe just find true love?.
Be under no illusions, Adventureland is no teen sex comedy reliant on crude jokes and cringe slap-stick moments to get its humour. Which as it's brought to us by the director of Superbad may come as something of a surprise. Greg Mottola is the said director, who here has crafted an ode to his own teenage strife's concerning first jobs and first loves. Though not really offering anything new as such, I mean the old "summer I came of age" film is hardly new is it? Mottola has however managed to blend youthful spirits with a serious kink and nicely cloak it in a bittersweet 80s haze.
Some parts are clearly aimed at the guffaw teen viewers, awkward erections and friends who punch you in the testicles - tee hee hee, Adventureland feels, and is, a subtle film made by someone who clearly lived it. The care and thought that Mottola has put into it benefits the cast as much as it does the viewers. Jesse Eisenberg (James) is a splendid bit of casting, almost poetically slow, he nicely plays it to have the upcoming tribulations totally believable. Enter Kristen Stewart as Em, pretty and smartly essaying a girl, soon to be woman, trying to make sense in her off kilter world. Her scenes with both Eisenberg and the buff Ryan Reynolds, in a role that takes some skill to get as right as he does, are the highlights of the piece. While Martin Starr is the other performance of note as the pipe smoking intellectual, Joel.
What youngsters that I know who have seen the film have had less than favourable reactions to it. This can probably be put down to two things. One is that the expectation of another Superbad-a-like comedy has not been met. Two is that, you know what folks? Mottola hasn't made this for kids, he's made it for those who were once kids themselves in a decade not so very long ago... 8/10
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★ 7 / 10
Adventureland
jboothmillard
I knew the leading actor from The Social Network was in it, I knew about the setting, and I knew the critics give it a good rating, I was looking forward to…
I knew the leading actor from The Social Network was in it, I knew about the setting, and I knew the critics give it a good rating, I was looking forward to whatever it had to offer, directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad, Paul). Basically set in 1987, at the beginning of summer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, young adult James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) has graduated from Oberlin College with a comparative literature degree, but he inexperienced in many ways, including being a virgin. He has plans to spend the summer touring Europe with his best friend Eric (Michael Zegen), before heading to New York City to attend a journalism graduate school at Columbia University, but his parents, Mr. Brennan (Jack Gilpin) and Mrs. Brennan (Wendie Malick), announce they can no longer financially support him. James has no real skills, but he is forced to take the only job he can get, at a third rate amusement park called Adventureland, assistant manager Bobby (Bill Hader) assigns him to be one of many games operators, most of the games themselves are fixed. James's co- workers include the sarcastic Joel (Martin Starr); park manager and Bobby's wife Paulette (Kristen Wiig); the alluring Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva); and the park's maintenance man/technician and part-time musician Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds). James believes he has died and gone to hell, until an incident with a cheating, threatening customer brings along Emily "Em" Lewin (Twilight's Kristen Stewart), another games worker, who saves him, he is instantly attracted to her, and with no real experience with women, Mike takes him under his wing to give him advice. James and Em becomes good friends, slowly they embark on a relationship, and have their first kiss, but she wants to take things slowly, James is upset, and when Lisa P. asks him on a date, he eventually accepts, during it they kiss. After the date, James learns Em had called apologising for rejecting him, Joel is irritated about James being with Lisa P., James unsuccessfully tries to convince him to stop quitting, James is honest with Em about going out with Lisa P., hearing this she ends her affair with Connell. James goes to Connell's mother's house, where he apparently takes girls for sex, he is upset to see Em walk out, James spreads the word around, Em quits in anger and moves to New York, James is heartbroken, gets drunk and drives his father's car into a tree, the following morning his mother tells him he must pay for the damage with his summer earnings. James no longer has enough to attend graduate school like he wanted, but with his parents' blessing he heads to New York anyway, meeting Em at her apartment she is reluctant to talk to him, but she is touched by what he tells her, he reveals he will wait for next year to go to Columbia, and they embrace, removing their clothes, implying they will have sex. Also starring Josh Pais as Mr. Lewin, Mary Birdsong as Francy and Paige Howard as Sue O'Malley. Eisenberg is great as the vulnerable, nerdy every man, and Stewart is good as his smart but melancholy love interest, this is not the typical teen movie, most are filled with gross-out jokes and outrageous behaviour, but this one is a more heartfelt, focusing simply on the relationships between characters, and leaving room for 1980s nostalgia, a simple but most effective coming-of-age comedy drama. Very good!
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Those Summer movies with character development taste profound, meaningful and somehow satisfying.... This genre of fine art is apparently nostalgic and no longer contemporary, i feel that the world is becoming digitalized and no longer that vivid, by that I mean, I feel that self reflection is dying. I need to go to my hypothetical Adventureland, or wherever that would let me feel me instead of what im doing....... By the way, you people reading this comment.. want a movie recommendation.. The Way Way Back,,,,,