Adventureland 2009

Critics score:
88 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: I think this is a sweet movie. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: A little warmer, a little funnier and a lot more truthful than the last 20 or 30 of its ilk. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Thanks to an exceptionally deft touch, Mottola manages to capture the absurdity and anguish of young adulthood, while never sacrificing meaning on the altar of crude humor. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: Mottola's made a movie that will work like a voodoo charm on a small-but-dedicated audience: onetime slackers who'll not only dig the soundtrack but, probably, be sure to get it on vinyl. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: What makes the movie such an unexpectedly potent little number is that Adventureland comes to stand for Stagnationland; the real roller coaster (i.e., life) is just outside the park. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Like its models, this is funny, smart, and complacent. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: There's no shortage of felicitous lines or interesting performances, yet the movie, like the amusement park of its title, feels constructed from familiar parts. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Though James is a passive hero, Eisenberg plays him with such earnest charm that you root for him. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Adventureland refreshingly inhabits a world without clear-cut heroes or bad guys, just richly realized characters struggling to get by. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: A worthy effort, several cuts above the teen comedies that came out of the era it depicts while managing to capture it thoroughly. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It's the sort of flavorless, willfully quirky, occasionally amusing slice of suburban boredom that, for years, has given the Sundance Film Festival its soft, gooey center. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: The youths of Superbad were a little bit younger, a little more likable, their dirty-virgin wit more hilarious [than in Adventureland]. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Audiences expecting another dumb wallow will be startled, and I hope enlivened, by this movie's core of feeling. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: It proves Mottola has a sweet sensibility for intimate grins, as well as broad yuks. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Yes, you've seen much of it before, and the nervous James character is now officially a cliche. But Stewart makes you care anyway. This, folks, is an actress. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Adventureland doesn't quite soar -- it lopes along affectionately. But for nostalgia junkies, it's one from the heart. Read more

Cole Haddon, Film.com: Characters like James and Stewart's Em feel out of place for their own reasons, and consequently provide just enough perspective for us to remember the absurdity of the culture around them, but never with disdain. Read more

Christopher Kelly, Dallas Morning News: There's no mistaking Mottola's sincerity or his talent. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Born from the trauma of Reaganomics, the teen films of the '80s had the same awareness of the gulf separating the haves and have nots. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: With a cast that believed in one another and a writer-director who believed he didn't have to follow up Superbad with SuperEvenBadder, Adventureland is the kind of adventure we could all use more of. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The real challenge for Adventureland -- a sweet, surprisingly tender romantic comedy set at a Pittsburgh amusement park -- is to confound expectations. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Adventureland may be targeted at teens, but it's a sophisticated film that just happens to be about unformed people and their raw emotions. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The story is semi-autobiographical, but has a gentler touch than his prior work on Superbad, and certainly relies less on slapstick episodes. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The movie does a very good job of capturing the teens and their times. Everything feels right, from the ups-and-downs of late '80s rock, to the way kids really behaved. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Adventureland earns its edge-of-adulthood sweetness and has characters with real hearts under their goofy T-shirts. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Adventureland isn't as clever as Kicking, and not nearly as hilarious as Superbad, but it's still a sweet little memory ache, a Proustian cookie co-flavored with semiotics and Whitesnake. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The only adventure here will be for kids too young to know what 'coming of age' means. And they can't get into an R-rated movie. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Adventureland mixes the intimate, indie vibe of Daytrippers with the absurdist screwball streak of Superbad, to winning effect. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A sharp, insightful, charming motion picture. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Director Greg Mottola, who made the rather wonderful Superbad, is back now with a sweeter story, more quietly funny, again about a hero who believes he may be a virgin outstaying his shelf life. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Adventureland throws a lot at us, but not enough of it sticks. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Adventureland, is a total delight, with a winsome and terrifically textured cast who seem both like young-adult archetypes and recognizable human beings. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: With Adventureland, Mottola is using some of the stock from his Superbad triumph to make the kind of personal film he should be making, that he probably would have liked to have made in the years following Daytrippers. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Adventureland, Greg Mottola's tale of coming of age in Pittsburgh in 1987, has the note-perfect melancholy of a classic young adult novel. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Writer/director Greg Mottola's followup to his hit Superbad is the most utterly and engagingly human youth comedy I've seen in ages. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Although this '80s flashback has an appealing sheen of sweetness, it sticks so closely to the rhythms of remembrance that it lacks dramatic impact. We've heard this story too many times before. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: [Director Mottola] coaxes a set of uniformly credible performances from his ensemble cast, and makes effective use of a soundtrack that's as eclectic as the characters. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Adventureland is what you might call stealth comedy. The laughs are few but they sneak up on you and really deliver. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: As a sweet-natured character comedy - and a subtle exercise in generic boundary-pushing - this is a real charmer. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: One of Mottola's best jokes involves Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus".... [I]t's hard to imagine a better use of nostalgia: to remind us of the many things we miss from a particular time, and the one reason we would never, ever want to go back. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: While Adventureland may shift moods suddenly and meander, the highlight is Eisenberg's ability to endearingly convey gawkiness and mortification. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Adventureland unspools as a rather ordinary account of youthful summer misadventures that goes down easily thanks to a sparky cast. Read more

Scott Foundas, Village Voice: I've seen Mottola's movie twice, and both times, it has inspired feelings of joy, sadness, and a profound yearning for the unrecoverable past. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: [Mottola] doesn't always find the right tone in trying to cover such varied terrain, but you have to admire him for trying inject some substance into what can be a predictably mindless genre. Read more