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Created Apr 18, 2009 02:07PM PST • Edited Jul 17, 2015 09:58AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Terrific coming of age romantic-comedy, mildly raunchy and plenty knowing. Not tremendously LOL though studded with laughs, many from killer funny throwaway lines. Plus it’s a well crafted, well developed story about a set of characters who become more interesting as the movie progresses.

   For those of a certain age (say old enough to have come of age in the 80s), enjoying the movie requires getting in touch with your inner post-adolescent. Thinking like a parent is a sure buzzkill given the movie’s embrace of mild hedonism and loose morality.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart charmingly play the romantics at the movie’s center. Each are awkward: he a boy trying to operate as a man, she a girl already operating as a woman. They play this pitch perfectly – confused, halting, alternately too strong and too weak.

   The rest of the strong cast includes plenty of dead-on comic and straight players.

   • Ryan Reynolds (aka, Mr. Scarlett Johansson) as the too handsome dude-about-town.
   • Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the couple who manage Adventureland. Hader continues his run of deadly funny supporting roles, now including Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, and Knocked Up. Fellow SNL castmate Wiig’s trademark sotto voce delivery works well alongside Hader’s over-the-top delivery.
   • Jack Gilpin and Wendy Malick, two terrifically smug character actors, as all too fallible parents.
   • Margarita Levieva as the park hottie, cute as hell, with a perfect ass, and she can act. Girl’s got a future.
   • Martin Starr as the ectomorphic intellectual who gets to deliver more than a few hilarious lines. To wit, his deadpan reply to a newbie’s horror about the park’s con games: “You’ll get over it Trotsky.”

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Greg Mottola proved himself a first rate comedic director with Superbad, and now proves himself a huge talent by both writing and directing this terrific movie.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Crisply edited, most scenes end immediately after serving their dramatic or comedic purpose, but before their absurdity becomes overwhelmingly apparent.

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Sadly, I can’t recall many of the movie’s copious funny lines, nor are they yet cataloged anywhere on the web. But they’re there in the movie. Listen carefully.

13. Music Great 4.0

    As to be expected in a coming-of-age movie, music looms large, from the great (Lou Reed, The Replacements, The Cure, even a lesser, latter Stones song) to the exuberantly crappy (Whitesnake and Foreigner). Rock on Amadeus.

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

    Mild yes, but deserving of its R rating.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Plenty of weed is smoked, with the effects often accurately shown. For instance, the dim witted hottie suddenly gets throaty and rapturous about the relative pleasures of sailboats and powerboats after burning half a joint. Deep.

    Where they partake is often absurd however. Dudes sparking up in front of their house in broad daylight with both sets of parents obliviously chatting away on the porch? Bogus.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.8

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0