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yeah funny movie

A modern rom-com that doesn't rely on quirky bullshit or cheesy Hollywood tripe is always a breath of fresh air. It's manages to come off pretty smart, all things considered, and treads carefully between the worlds of nostalgic charm and overly sentimental gush.

It's not brilliant, but romantic comedies are unavoidable, so they may as well be this good.

In a year full of surprises, I unabashedly consider Adventureland my biggest film surprise of 2009. Those who know me know of my extreme hatred for the social phenomenon known as "Twilight." In fact, I don't just hate the movies, I hate the books, I hate the people who act in the movies, I hate the people who make the props, and if it weren't for the fact that half of the women in my family participate in the phenomenon, I would hate the people who read the books as well. Until I saw Adventureland, my loathing extended to Kristen Stewart. Now I mostly don't mind her, but I actively tell people to see this movie, if only to see KStew's fantastic, career-defying performance.
Adventureland is a movie that perfectly captures the essence of not only the late 80's, but it also captures exquisitely what it feels like to be young. The flick takes place in 1987, and our lead is James, played with ease by Jesse Eisenberg (brother of that little Welch's girl from the mid-90's and star of Zombieland). When James' parents suffer a huge career setback, his dreams of travelling Europe and attending an Ivy League school whislt living in New York are set on fire and thrown to sea without a lifejacket. In order to salvage what little future he still has, James takes a job at a local theme park called "Adventureland." Here he learns important life lessons and blah blah blah. The thing about this movie is it takes things that we've seen over and over, but it does it in such a sweet, original way that you can't help but fall in love.
First and foremost, the comedy is gold here. Martin Starr provided me with more laughs in this 107 minutes than Miss March, Fired Up, and I Love You, Beth Cooper combined. His line delivery was amazing every time, and for me he definitely stole the show. Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig also showed up to prove why they are the only good part of Saturday Night Live these days, although Wiig pretty much played the same character she plays every time she appears on SNL, and in my opinion, it's getting pretty old, pretty fast. However, she kept the laughs coming here, and I put up with it. Ryan Reynolds gave a few good one-liners, as per usual, but this was really more of a dramatic outing for him, which came as a great surprise to me. That brings me to my next point -- the drama part of the story.
Altough this flick is at points hilarious, for the most part it remains darkly comic, nostalgic, and just kind of serious. This is more the story of a young man growing up than it is the gross-out teen comedy that it was billed as, and that we've come to expect from Hollywood, and therein lies the true beauty of the movie. As the main character, Jesse Eisenberg performs far better than Michael Cera would have. He plays the character as a sensitive, nerdy, inexperienced teenager, and he's incredibly likable and believable. His love interest is Em, played by Kristen Stewart, and this is where my biggest surprise came from. Stewart isn't the whiny, mopey, needy little girl that she is in the Twilight movies. Here she's a young girl, on the brink of womanhood, exploring her sexuality and experimenting with drugs. The first time she nonchalantly utters the "F" word, you'll realize that this is not the Bella that you're used to, and it's a refreshing performance. The great thing is that she's more than likely just playing herself, and it's entirely likable. Another performance that really shocked me in this movie was that of Margarita Levieva as Lisa P, the chick that everybody in Adventureland wants to bone. Although she was basically just there to dance around looking hot, she really made the role a little bit more playful and deep than say, Megan Fox would have.
Another key to making this movie better than it should have been was the musical selection. The soundtrack includes key 80's tracks from Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Lou Reed, The Cure, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Rolling Stones, and many many others. While on paper it sounds like your dads classic rock radio station, in the movie it really lends to the authenticity of maintaining the reality of the movie. The songs really work well and they make the flick just that much better.
Adventureland is not the movie that you think it is. While it was mostly advertised as an average teen comedy, it is actually a transcendant adult movie about growing up. It's one of my favorite movies from 2009 and I definitely recommend it. If you're in the mood to watch a great comedy with a lot of heart, then pick this up. It's also a great weapon against the Kristen Stewart haters. I'm gonna go with 9/10.

There was nothing enjoyable about this movie. The main character is supposed to be a recent college graduate but any viewer would think he is a high school freshman. Kristen Stewart plays the "cool chick" but instead just twitches her way through the entire film without being likable. I watched the entire movie and did not hear or see a single joke. I am amazed that it has such high reviews. What is wrong with you people?

An enjoyable film with real to life feeling situations.

I hate that critics are often too critical of good movies, and lavish praise on many movies that suck. Let's face it I'm probably too lenient with movies, but you know why? It's cause I love movies, for me they are an escape, not a piece of art, and unless you're a film major most artsy flicks are just 2 hours of crap. So let's compare, I like rottentomatoes.com because their critics are very harsh on movies, and so I figure if a movie on their gets between like 60 precent or higher I'm probably going to enjoy it. Adventure Land, on rottentomatoes.com 88%, so by my reasoning this movie should be hilarious! That's what it was marketed as right a comedy? That's the impression I got anyway.

I'll give you my review of this movie, and how I feel in one short little phrase. This movie was stupid! 2 boring hours that just drug on, and on, and on. This movie sucked so hard!

I'm not even going to waste my time telling you who was in this movie. Not worth my time, because quite frankly it was junk. Right now I'm sitting here, just shaking my head. I'm not real sure how much time I want to spend on this movie, these reviews I do are more opinion than review really. But I guess I'll try. So here is this movie in a very general nutshell. This movie starts out and feels like an early 80s teen romance movie, I'm too young to be nostalgic for those equally crappy movies, I'm sure I've already lost some people since some swear by 80s romance. So that's how this movie starts out and feels, young nerdy not very attractive teens parents have lost all their money and he can not afford to go to Europe with his friends...ahhhh. So this young man who wants so bad to go to an expensive ivy league grad school *yawn* has to get a summer job at a crappy run down theme park.

Now the only saving grace for this entire pile of steaming crap are the owners of the theme park, those two are Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, the only parts that were at all funny in this movie were the parts these two were in. They are the only two that deserved to have there name mentioned. Even Ryan Reynolds' part was a major player in the crapiness of this movie. Anyway, take your basic stupid love story. Young unattractive nerd, quickly develops a love interest with not one, but two hot chicks, one your basic cliche dumb girl, the other a very intelligent, but deeply troubled young woman having an affair with Reynolds' character. He gets a mention because Ryan Reynolds rocks, and he get's a pass for doing this poop throwing fest. So we have not one, but like 3 grad students working at this dump of a theme park, and take any stupid love story, no matter how many throw them in a blender and this is what the blender poops out..big pile of steaming film crap.

Oh well, I've said crap to many times, I'll stop talking about this movie otherwise it will digress into one word sentences that look just like this. Poop. Poop. Poop. Poop. Poop. I really hated this movie, my suggestion don't watch it, movies like this make me so glad I've resubscribed to netflix, a few months ago I'd just buy every new movie that came out, now I can screen my movie collection. And this one definitely isn't going to make it...gah this movie sucked so bad! Skip it, watch Barney re runs, watch public access tv, plant flowers, count tree leaves, just don't waste one cent on this movie! It...is...TERRIBLE!

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This is one of those movies that isn't fabulous, but yet keeps your attention throughout. It's a movie about theme park employees, although I've never worked in one, I'm sure the job is as boring and has the same dating drama as the movie reflected. As I said not great, but I kinda liked it.

Overall not a hilarious film, but it's drama and charm definitely makes it enjoyable.

Certainly not as funny as Superbad, but it's not really cut from the same mold. Definitely entertaining enough and will probably end up being popular in some circles.

This movie was funny, but it ended up having too much drama for its genre