Adventureland (2009)

Very Cool!!!

Excellent but underrated film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I thought Adventureland was going to be funny and entertaining - it was neither. This movie is over-dramatic and pessimistic. The only bright spots of this waste of time were the scenes with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig - and there weren't nearly enough of those.

It's difficult to know how to rate Adventureland. It's a film that's all about the relationships between the characters. The theme park just provides a backdrop and a reason for the characters to all be in the same place at the same time.If you can relate to what the characters are going through, you will love this film. If not, you'll probably find it boring as it is quite slow going. There are moments of humour but the story is primarily about the chaotic lives of all the characters. In my experience, life really is just like that, so I enjoyed it a lot.One negative is that Kristen Wiig is given top billing but she isn't really in it at all. When she is on screen she's given almost nothing to do, which is a waste. On the plus side, when she is on screen, the scene always includes Bill Hader too and he's brilliant in this :-)

I find it hard to decide if I want to applaud this movie for doing away with the usual obviously designed dialogues that exceed the characters intellect, or to criticise it for its very few original and surprising moments. One clear issue I have with embracing the former perspective is that the characters themselves are hopelessly exaggerated. The likable nerd, the philosophical jew, the femme fatale waiting to be rescued by true love, the sexy gum-popping lipstick chick, the bald mother-in-law witch, the lets-hit-each-other-in-the-balls jokester, the queer folks running an amusement park... The only character which has a slightly surprising side to me would have to be Connell, who is an adulterer and liar but still manages to be a likable guy, and garner some sympathy when he doesn't rat James out. So you construct a story that has not much originality over any other romcoms, cook up the characters out of the usual rather one- dimensional repertoire, then try to be more realistic and life-like about their dialogues? To me, this ended up being neither fish nor fowl.Still, to some degree, I can't help but succumbing to the romantic summer fair attraction of Adventureland, its crew, its atmosphere. If you want to watch a similar themed movie, with more heart, originality and less pathos, consider The Way Way Back.

I knew the leading actor from The Social Network was in it, I knew about the setting, and I knew the critics give it a good rating, I was looking forward to whatever it had to offer, directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad, Paul). Basically set in 1987, at the beginning of summer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, young adult James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) has graduated from Oberlin College with a comparative literature degree, but he inexperienced in many ways, including being a virgin. He has plans to spend the summer touring Europe with his best friend Eric (Michael Zegen), before heading to New York City to attend a journalism graduate school at Columbia University, but his parents, Mr. Brennan (Jack Gilpin) and Mrs. Brennan (Wendie Malick), announce they can no longer financially support him. James has no real skills, but he is forced to take the only job he can get, at a third rate amusement park called Adventureland, assistant manager Bobby (Bill Hader) assigns him to be one of many games operators, most of the games themselves are fixed. James's co- workers include the sarcastic Joel (Martin Starr); park manager and Bobby's wife Paulette (Kristen Wiig); the alluring Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva); and the park's maintenance man/technician and part-time musician Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds). James believes he has died and gone to hell, until an incident with a cheating, threatening customer brings along Emily "Em" Lewin (Twilight's Kristen Stewart), another games worker, who saves him, he is instantly attracted to her, and with no real experience with women, Mike takes him under his wing to give him advice. James and Em becomes good friends, slowly they embark on a relationship, and have their first kiss, but she wants to take things slowly, James is upset, and when Lisa P. asks him on a date, he eventually accepts, during it they kiss. After the date, James learns Em had called apologising for rejecting him, Joel is irritated about James being with Lisa P., James unsuccessfully tries to convince him to stop quitting, James is honest with Em about going out with Lisa P., hearing this she ends her affair with Connell. James goes to Connell's mother's house, where he apparently takes girls for sex, he is upset to see Em walk out, James spreads the word around, Em quits in anger and moves to New York, James is heartbroken, gets drunk and drives his father's car into a tree, the following morning his mother tells him he must pay for the damage with his summer earnings. James no longer has enough to attend graduate school like he wanted, but with his parents' blessing he heads to New York anyway, meeting Em at her apartment she is reluctant to talk to him, but she is touched by what he tells her, he reveals he will wait for next year to go to Columbia, and they embrace, removing their clothes, implying they will have sex. Also starring Josh Pais as Mr. Lewin, Mary Birdsong as Francy and Paige Howard as Sue O'Malley. Eisenberg is great as the vulnerable, nerdy every man, and Stewart is good as his smart but melancholy love interest, this is not the typical teen movie, most are filled with gross-out jokes and outrageous behaviour, but this one is a more heartfelt, focusing simply on the relationships between characters, and leaving room for 1980s nostalgia, a simple but most effective coming-of-age comedy drama. Very good!