Skip to main contentThree months after the phenomenon of Knocked Up , let's check in on actor Seth Rogen. Ah, here he is in Superbad : doubled over in an alley, vomiting. This is what happens to police officers who drink a lot of beer and then go sprinting after juveniles. His quarry, a frightened but sober high-school student, has long outpaced him. "The kid's a freak," Rogen moans. "Fastest kid alive."
It's only a matter of days until Superbad becomes a runaway hit: Everyone with a mild interest in cinematic comedy is going to see it, and they will declare—breathlessly, but rightly—that it ranks among the funniest movies ever made. So now is a good moment to take a breather and examine the rapid acceleration of Seth Rogen, whose career arc is much like everyone else fortunate enough to fall into the orbit of producer/director Judd Apatow. Rogen began writing the script for Superbad when he was 13 years old. He landed a role at age 17 on Apatow's television series Freaks and Geeks —a show as unpopular with audiences then as it is adored on DVD now. Then came a supporting role in The 40 Year-Old Virgin , and a starring turn in Knocked Up , and now the geeks can develop any project they like. This means that Apatow is producing Rogen's script about two stoners on the lam from a murderer (The Pineapple Express ), his script about two children who hire a bodyguard to protect them from bullies (Drillbit Taylor ) and yes, Superbad , an entire movie about two high-school seniors trying to buy alcohol in the firm hope that underage drinking will lead directly to underage sex. It is not an accident that one of these boys is named Seth. The bulky 25-year-old heaving in the road has a license to do anything he wants—and it's not a fake ID.
This is great news, and not just for him. Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow are not just superbad themselves; they are the cause of superbadness in others. Their beneficiaries include Superbad director Greg Mottola, who has perfectly blended ribald verbal acrobatics with sprawling pratfalls in a way that recalls '30s screwball comedy with a very dirty mouth. Also on the lucky list are Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, playing the unpopular guys who seek booze and babes at least in part to distract themselves from the fear of losing their friendship after graduation. As Seth and Evan, the two actors achieve a brilliant balance: Hill is constantly working himself into fits of fast-talking rage—the best of his rampages includes a denunciation of spermicidal lube—while Cera, already a veteran of abashed smiles as George-Michael on Arrested Development , nervously qualifies his statements into quiet absurdity. ("I was so pimp! I was like a pimp! I was like...one of those pimps.")
But the luckiest person of all—and the happiest surprise of Superbad —is a kid named Christopher Mintz-Plasse. He's the skinny, bespectacled nebbish Fogell, who is transformed by a fake driver's license and two incompetent cops (Rogen and Bill Hader) into McLovin—a man who is not only "old enough to party" but who can apparently do anything: make arrests, shoot guns, score with women…and all while stammering. The name McLovin is funny enough as a starting point ("What are you, an Irish R&B singer?"), but by half an hour into the film it has become a totem, a symbol of limitless power given to the unlikeliest recipient. (It's also going to be an inescapable catchphrase; the version that I hope gets the most usage is "You cock-blocked McLovin!," although everyone will have his favorite variation.)
The McLovin joke also works as a symbol of the meteoric rise of Rogen, Apatow and the rest of their growing club. Superbad isn't as thoughtful a movie as Knocked Up , but it may be more important, because it's looser, less polished and more indicative of what we can expect from this generation of entertainers. What marks them isn't just that they're ridiculous, or underdogs, or even clever. What they are is quick : fast off the mark verbally, and willing to keep talking until one of their wisecracks hits the funny bone—and then talk right through the laughter. Their dexterity marks a subtle but important shift from the comics who preceded them. Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson and other members of the collective identified as the Frat Pack get their laughs mostly by playing dumb; much of the best humor in movies like Old School and Zoolander happens while you wait for the characters to catch up to the joke. The Apatowheads have their flaws—their crudeness can wear thin, they have a latent streak of anti-intellectualism and only occasionally do they endeavor to understand women, usually late in the third act—but it's hard to notice any missteps because the characters are so far ahead of you, leaping into jokes and emotional exposure while you're still recovering from the last quip. The geeks have inherited the comedic earth, and it's because they got there first.
Superbad
WWeek 2015