Superbad

Not supergood. Maybe I’m getting too old for high school grossout humor. This carries the Apatow brand (and features his repertory company) but wasn’t written or directed by him so maybe there’s an element of Uncle Judd’s maturity missing in this raunchy juvenile slapstick. Here the inmates have taken over the asylum, with the script written by Seth Rogen and his childhood buddy Evan Goldberg, about a character named Seth (Jonah Hill) and his buddy Evan (Michael Cera.) Rogen has a large, maybe too large, supporting role as one of the cops who is more childish than the party-mad kids, on their crazy quest to buy booze to get girls drunk enough to make a mistake -- “And we could be that mistake!” Humiliation is the order of the day, with perhaps a redemptive glimpse of humility. Greg Mottola directs, without any great regard for plausibility and with some distinct misogyny. There is a little poignant truth as well as a lot of raucous humor in the film’s celebration of male teen mania, but nothing one hasn’t seen before and better. (2007, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-76.)