Adventureland

Adventureland

Your first part time job always sucks.

I found myself liking this movie a little more than I thought I would. Set in the 80s, the movie is about a nerdy teenager that has a while summer to make enough money to go to college in New York. He decides to take a job at an amusement park. While working there, he discovers love.

Loosely based on director/writer Greg Mottola life, Adventureland rings more true than what the trailers try to make it out to be (Teen comedy). There are some similarities to his other movie Superbad, but this movie feels more like a personal story.

Jesse Eisenberg does his best impression of Michael Cera ever put on screen. I’m not knocking Eisenberg’s performance, but it did remind me of Cera a lot. His character doesn’t come across as annoying, and you actually feel for him toward the end. Kristen Stewart, when not flirting with emo vampires and werewolves, is okay playing the unlikely love interest. Her character has one deep flaw involving an older character.

Ryan Reynolds plays a slightly more restrained version of his character from Waiting… You’ll see what I mean.

The movie does an impressive job showing what growing in the 80s felt like. While the people are portrayed as being teenagers, and I was a mere child during this time, I still felt an attachment to this time period. And, the movie has an extensive soundtrack with some fun 80s songs all throughout. Some of the songs I had completely forgotten about.

All the characters a bit off, in an eccentric way, and that sets the mood of the entire film. It does feel like a Judd Apatow produced movie, but he had nothing to do with this story.

Adventureland isn’t without its flaws, but I still like the movie. At certain points, I even laughed out loud.

Grade: C+