Adventureland
Director: Greg Mottola
Writer: Greg Mottola
2009
Don’t you hate deceptive movie trailers? I know I do. And I also know the trailer for this film is extremely deceptive, almost as much as the one for I Love You, Man. Adventureland wasn’t nearly as funny as I was led to believe, not was it really any good. The most irritating thing about this film was that I could not stop picturing Michael Cera in Jesse Eisenberg’s role. Really, the film was written with Cera in mind and because they couldn’t get him, they chose a Cera look-and-act-a-like. Adventureland is a fluffed up version of The Sure Thing or The 40 Year Old Virgin (PG style) because it is said throughout the film that the main character (Jesse Eisenberg) is a virgin, much to everyone’s surprise, whereas the girl he has his eye on (played by Kristen Stewart) has had more than a few flings. Paring the film down, there isn’t much to it except Eisenberg’s annoying Cera-like expressions and Stewart’s constant irritating hair flipping, eventually leading up to the point when Eisenberg’s character finally gets the girl of his dreams and loses his virginity. Adventureland does have a few funny moments, or moments when the film was actually bearable, but all that is in the trailer. Under the characters’ attempts to be adults, lie teenage angsty problems mirroring the film’s attempt to be dramatic and complicated, when all it is, is childish.
