Adventureland
by Greg Mottola
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DVD details
Actor: Jesse Eisenberg, Kelsey Ford, Kristen Stewart, Michael Zegen, Ryan ReynoldsDirector: Greg Mottola
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
Writer: Greg Mottola
Producer: Anne Carey
Producer: Bruce Toll
Producer: Declan Baldwin
Producer: Scott Ferguson
Producer: Sidney Kimmel
Producer: Ted Hope
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-08-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Miramax
Product features:
- From thedirector of SUPERBAD comes ADVENTURELAND, a smart, witty comedy we canall relate to. When James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) has to cancel hisdream summer vacation and make some money for grad school, the only jobhe can get is at Adventureland, a tacky amusement park where the gamesare rigged and the rides make you hurl. But it's where he meets Em(Kristen Stewart, TWILIGHT), and his rollercoa
DVD Reviews of Adventureland
DVD Review: Adventure?No.Land?Yes.
Summary: 3 Stars
(SPOILERS AHEAD!) Don't worry if you didn't see this movie in the theaters or haven't had a chance to rent it, because you've seen this movie before. Adventureland follows an old formula: boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Something happens that make boy and girl break up. Of course, they still love each other. Then something happens that brings boy and girl back together.
It's not that formulas are bad. Plenty of movies are based on the same concepts and ideas. For example: Something tragic happens to character X's family. Character X seeks revenge. Character X gets his revenge. Apply this formula one way and we get The Outlaw Josey Wales. Apply it in another way and we get Punisher: Warzone. The difference is the first movie had something to say and the second movie was an excuse to show explosions on the big screen.
Adventureland falls into the second category of a movie that has nothing to say. Greg Mottola, who directed Superbad, brought nothing new to a crowded genre of movies saying the same thing. It's Say Anything without the boom box. It's Jerry Maguire without the "You had me at hello." It's The Notebook without the notebook.
I could almost forgive Mottola for creating a movie that has no interest in being anymore than what it is. Not every film can have a defining moment that captures an audience's heart or defines a generation. However, every movie should have characters the audience cares about. There should be some connection between characters in a movie and the audience. Audiences wanted Marty McFly to get back to the future just as much as they wanted Biff to get his @ss kicked. We loved Marty; we hated Biff. However, we had a connection with Biff, because we have all known a Biff that we wanted to punch in the nose.
Mottola failed to create and develop characters that we care about one-way or the other. If James and Em get back together, that's fine. If they don't get back together, that's fine. If Mike is cheating on his wife, that's fine. If they all get hit by a bus, that's fine too. The impression is that Mottola doesn't care about his characters and if a director doesn't care about his characters then why should we? It's a shame, because the film has a very talented roster.
In the lead role of James is Jesse Eisenberg. James is the self-deprecating, uncomfortable, nerdy guy who is figuring out life. Eisenberg is perfect in the role. He has perfected this same character in other movies like Rodger Dodger and The Hunting Party. It was the same character he played in Zombieland (hmmm.....Adventureland to Zombieland. Coincidence? ).
Playing Eisenberg's love interest is Kristen Stewart...give me a moment to regain my composure.... Stewart plays Em, the girl that shows James the amusement park ropes. I will go on record right now saying, "I like Kristen Stewart." She reminds me of the girl in school (high school, GED classes, college) who is hotter than a three-alarm fire, but has a low self-esteem. You know the girl who covers everything, from the bangs that go past her eyes to the baggy clothes that cover everything else. The girl who thinks that she has to look weird and reject others before they can reject her. The girl who could have anyone, if she were to give it half a chance.
Of course, James falls deeply and madly in love with her before she even opens her mouth. I don't blame the guy; it's Kristen Stewart! However, there is not one single moment in the film that we can see a spark between the two of them. The movie goes from the two of them meeting and then jumps to them being in love. It just happens and we have to go along with it, because Mottola hasn't given us any other choice.
In this type of movie there is always something that tears the happy couple apart. Playing the wedge that comes between James and Em is Mike, played by Ryan Reynolds. I like Reynolds as an actor. He has talent and in movies like Adventureland, he gets to show it. Too often we see Reynolds in movies where he is the smart @ss or the class clown. I admit it; he does a great job in movies like Van Wilder, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and Waiting. But, it's movies like Definitely, Maybe, The Nines, and The Amityville Horror that we really get to see Reynolds shine.
Mike, the amusement park's handy man, had an affair with Em. James freaks out after he learns that the two of them had something going on in the past. Of course, he doesn't want to see her again. This isn't the sad moment that it should be because Mottola has shoved on us a love connection between James and Em that we never believed in the first place. We still don't care when James realizes he made a mistake dumping a hottie like Kristen Stewart and tries to win her back.
The real gems in this movie are Bill Hader and Kristnen Wigg. You may remember Hader as Seth Rogen's cop partner in Superbad and Wigg from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Both actors are hysterical as the owners of the amusement park where James and Em work. They steal every scene that they're in. Unfortunately, neither one of them are on screen long enough to save the movie.
You won't regret watching Adventureland, but there are better flicks that deserve your time.
Description of Adventureland
ADVENTURELAND - DVD MovieA sweet and slap-happy mix of indie coming-of-age drama and Judd Apatow?s scatological but heartfelt manchild comedies, Greg Mottola?s Adventureland is a winning look at the pleasures and frustrations of dead-end jobs and teenage kicks as viewed through a filter of mid-?80s pop culture. The underutilized and always watchable Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) is a sheltered, introspective New York college grad who discovers that his parents? financial woes will not only quash his dream of a summer in Europe (to enjoy its more ?sexually permissive? nations) but require a move to Pittsburgh, where he lands a job at a dilapidated amusement park. There, he?s thrown in with a motley crew of eccentrics, small-town types and a few genuine free spirits, most notably co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), whose complicated past proves irresistible to his repressed psyche. Mottola, who directed Superbad and episodes of the well-loved Freaks and Geeks, and who once worked in a similar park as a teen, doesn?t shy from the crude laughs that make Apatow?s features so popular, but he tempers it with a wistful tone and layered characters that hew closer to his earliest work, The Daytrippers. Though ill-matched at first, Eisenberg and Stewart make a likable on-screen couple, and they?re well-supported by a terrific cast that includes such die-hard scene-stealers as Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park?s offbeat owners, Martin Starr as a Russian lit aficionado, and Ryan Reynolds as a former town tamer, now reduced to working as the park?s handyman. A soundtrack performed by underground faves Yo La Tengo and filled with a smart mix of hip cuts (Hüsker Dü, the New York Dolls, the Replacements) and period faves (Falco?s ?Rock Me Amadeus?) underscores the film?s blend of tentative emotions and broad laughs. -- Paul Gaita
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