MOVIE REVIEW - Superbad

In case Judd Apatow's sex comedy Knocked Up wasn't enough feel-good smut for one summer, its teenage follow-up Superbad should do the trick. It's hellish enough not just to appease us vulgarians for the rest of the year but to join the raunchy ranks of knee-slapping classics like Bad Santa and The Aristocrats.

The flick isn't anything more than a pair of near-nerd status high schoolers named Seth and Evan (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera – whose characters are respectively named after screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg) scoring booze for the weekend so they can get laid. But that's been the premise for a dozen all-time classics. Dazed and Confused was basically an hour and a half of zingers and tokers, but to this day it's considered a profound snapshot of adolescence – and, for those who got sex in their formative years, a trip down memory lane.

Superbad won't resonate with 2007's kiddos as Richard Linklater's flick did with Gen X stoners a decade ago, nor will it hold up as a modern-day dork revolt on celluloid (Revenge of the Nerds, Napoleon Dynamite). The words that come out of Seth and Evan's mouths, albeit hilarious, are obviously coming from an older crowd. It's as if the pair are possessed by a couple of dudes 15 years their seniors. Rogen's and Paul Rudd's adult characters in Knocked Up could easily have said the same things.

When two hottie classmates at school ask Seth to hook them up with hooch for the party, it doesn't ring true. “You scratch our backs, we'll scratch yours,” the busty brunette says. To which he replies: “Well, the funny thing about my back is it's located on my cock.”

When Seth confesses in the lunchroom to a dick-drawing fetish he's sustained since before puberty, it's not meant for the audience to believe. These are two of a hundred antics the smart-ass pulls in the movie – not meant to be understood as anything more than just zany, all out hilarity. And, the way I appreciate Billy Bob Thornton's abusive alcoholic banter in Bad Santa, I, too, can suspend my disbelief to enjoy watching this foul-mouthed fiend on screen.

So, true, Superbad is pretty much a Knocked Up Jr. in disguise - just another way to reel in the same crowd that gave the pregger comedy its $30 million opening weekend in June. But, again, if the movie's funny enough, who cares how realistic it is, right? I mean, seriously, a drunken safecracker in a Santa Claus suit with a midget sidekick? If that passes my radar with flying colors, then you won't hear a peep from me about a couple of locker room-talking hornballs trying to get laid for 90 minutes.