"Adventureland" review
by Mike DiGiorgio, Writer

            Had Adventureland come out when I was still a teenager in the 80s, I would have thought this was a classic.  It has sex, loud music, parties and a story about young adults trying to make it in the real world.  But with my adult perspective, I can’t help but think Adventureland is bland and a little sad. 

It’s like when you see a movie from your youth as an adult, and you want to share it with someone.  You pop it in and after an hour or so you realize:  “this isn’t as funny as I remembered it.”  One wonders if writer/director Greg Mottola looked back at his youth and thought:  “Man, those where great times.  I’ve got some funny stories to tell.”  But for those of us who weren’t there with him, they aren’t that funny.  Or interesting.  Or unique.

The year is 1987.  Jim (Jesse Eisenberg) is just out of college and looking toward grad school, which he can’t afford.  He’s a smart kid but has no practical experience at anything, so to pay his way, he takes a summer job that’s way beneath him at an amusement park called Adventureland.  He bonds with some of his co-workers, particularly a pretty and worldly girl named Em (Twilight’s Kristen Stewart).  He and Em get involved, but they can’t get truly involved because the near-jailbait Em is having an affair with Jim’s confidante – the park’s married handyman (Ryan Reynolds). 

It sounds like it could make a good coming-of-age drama.  Or with its amusement park setting – it could make a good coming-of-age comedy.  Or to become a classic, it could be a clever combination of both.  It strives for the last choice and fails.  (Going back to my own 80s youth for a moment, I’d cite Fast Times At Ridgemont High as what they’re going for here).

I’m going to be ultra-critical of the comedy side because of Mottola’s impressive background and the fact that it’s being used to sell this film.  As a director, Mottola was behind two modern classics:   Superbad, a truly funny coming-of-age comedy, and episodes of TV’s Arrested Development, a layered family comedy that rewards you with repeated viewings.  Mottola directed them;  he didn’t write them.  And watching Adventureland, I thought he knows how to shape a joke, he doesn’t know how to create them. 

Perhaps missing Superbad and Arrested Development star Michael Cera, Mottola directs Eisenberg to act like Cera’s awkward loser.  But he completely lacks Cera’s charm or quirkiness and ends up doing a pale imitation.  He’s simply bland, and together Mottola and Eisenberg guide us through the bland experience of a depressing summer job.  There are some minor chuckles, but no jokes or situations that make for any kind of comedy classic. 

Most of the laughs are provided by the solid supporting cast, who sadly, aren’t given enough to do.  Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are decent as the married couple that run Adventureland, and the movie could have used more of them.  I also got a few kicks out of Jim’s co-workers, including his dweebish best friend and the kid in the tight clothes who had an obsession with hitting Jim in the privates  (this is supposed to be about adolescents, after all). 

But they weren’t enough to give me big laughs, or even knowing, poignant ones.  So when it’s time for the movie to turn dramatic and make its statement about youth and the hard lessons we all learn, it’s hard to care.  Jim hasn’t shown enough emotion for you to think he cares that much about the romantic triangle he’s found himself in.  You know summer’s ending – why can’t Jim just move on?  I don’t care, why should he?

Kristen Stewart and Ryan Reynolds don’t do anything funny that I can recall, but to their credit, they’re both good at the dramatic half of the movie.  You can see why she’s pained, and Reynolds comes off as the jerk he’s supposed to be. 

I bet you knew people like Em and her lover when you were coming of age, and it may bring back some memories:  sad memories that you don’t normally want in your coming-of-age comedies unless you know—they make you laugh.  Instead, you’ll just get depressed and remember how sad coming of age can be. 

When all is said and done, Adventureland is probably pretty accurate portraying coming of age in the 80s, but it can’t hold up to a coming-of-age movie from the 80s.