Ralph's Movie Reviews: ADVENTURELAND

Thursday, April 9, 2009

ADVENTURELAND

Comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Jesse Eisenberg: 22-year-old recent college graduate James Brennan
Wendie Malick: his mom
Jack Gilpin: his dad
Matt Bush: his best friend Tommy Frigo
Bill Hader: Adventureland amusement park owner Bobby
Kristen Wiig: his wife Paulette
Martin Starr: James’ older co-worker Joel Schiffman
Kristen Stewart: another co-worker Emily (aka Em) Lewin
Ryan Reynolds: Mike Connell, park maintaince man
Margarita Levieva: the park’s “hotty” Lisa P.
Josh Pais: Em’s father
Mary Birdsong: Em’s stepmother

REVIEW
Casting has done a really good job: these are real-life, believable characters who interact like real people and talk like real people. In addition the acting is bang on in this coming-of-age movie centered around teenage romance. More restrained than many pictures of this sort, particularly the sexy bits, it is also more thought provoking.

One other thing: crude humour involving puking and groin punches to my mind takes it down a notch in trying to meet the expectations of some members of the audience. Mind you it’s not wall-to-wall crudeness and profanity but it has some of these elements that I could do without.

CLASSIFICATION

for language, drug use and sexual references.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
1. During the party at Em’s house one of the guests is walking about with his sunglasses on top of his head. This fashion statement did not exist when these events took place in 1987.
2. The etymology of the expression “it sucks” is the subject of some debate but was not used in 1987.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.