Adventureland

Just under the cast listing at the top of s’s DVD box cover it states in bold uppercase font, “FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SUPERBAD.” I get this bad feeling every time a lower budget, less promoted film gets sold on the success of something completely different and separate from itself. To me, that’s basically admitting what this entails has nothing else going for it on its own and that you should buy off of the credit of its creator’s major accomplishment. Nevertheless, I press play and immediately get drawn in by the sounds of a legendary Replacements tune, “Bastards of Young”. Jesse Eisenberg plays the main character, James Brennan, and he’s somewhat of a poor man’s Michael Cera in that his brand of awkwardness fails to deliver on the same comedic level. I really liked him in The Squid and the Whale where he flourished through a more emotionally dense storyline, but I couldn’t help but think that the only reason George-Michal Bluth didn’t star in this film is because he was booked.

The premise, like in most comedies, is relatively basic. James is a recent college graduate who plans on backpacking through Europe with some of his college friends for the summer before starting grad school at Columbia. His trip was supposed to be funded by his parents as a graduation gift, but unfortunately for James his father got demoted and the money they’d need to support his journey fell though. So, instead of vacationing, he has to find a summer job and the only local place willing to take on someone so overqualified is a modest theme park that goes by the name of, you guessed it, Adventureland. James develops a romantic interest at work and in no time and it makes not going to Europe seem half bad, but as it turns out his lady love is also sleeping with Ryan Reynold’s character, Mike Connell, the musical maintenance man who refuses to let his rock ‘n’ roll ambitions die. A jealous love triangle gets further complicated all the way up until the long awaited resolution.

Snicker worthy jokes are few and far between with this one and there are certainly no discernable “big laughs”. It’s more like a romantic comedy in that respect where the love element gets favored over reaching for any sort of impactful humor. However, there have been a lot of comedies with a love element that have managed to also maintain a high level of hilarity throughout such as Knocked Up and more recently Funny People. There was only one joke that got me every time and that’s when James’ friend Frigo would punch him in the balls when he wasn’t paying attention.

While it may seem backhanded, this movie was strengthened by some of the best tunes the ’80s had to offer as a backdrop. “I’m In Love With a Girl” by Big Star comes in at a college student pool party, “Your Love” by The Outfield plays over the repercussions of a drunken hookup and “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure accompanies a pot cookie fueled bumper car derby. All of the music used for the film was thoughtfully chosen and impeccably timed. Especially “Pale Blue Eyes” by The Velvet Underground which gets used on more than one occasion, but matches both scenarios equally well.

The bonus features are standard. There’s a making of, deleted scenes, and audio commentary. The making of is actually interesting because you get to see the behind the scenes work that goes into making a time piece set two decades past. Plus, it’s short, to the point, and not bogged down with less than insightful information. There are only three deleted scenes. None of them have much to offer on their own and they would have brought little to the work as a whole if included. The audio commentary is dry, but that has more to do with director Greg Mottola’s speaking demeanor than anything else. If the rent versus buy question ever gets posed with Adventureland, I recommend the former.

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