Another late review, but I’v been swamped with a ton of foreign films lately, so I have to pick and choose carefully. I chose Adventureland because Jesse Eisenberg is growing on me, and I am always curious to see if Kristen Stewart can pull off another character.
Adventureland
Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan, a young graduate who needs to raise money to head to college in New York. With a limited amount of skill, he finds himself at the local amusement park, and is hired on the spot.
He soon makes a new group of friends, who are mostly misfits and failures, which would explain why they are also at Adventureland. It’s in this new job James also finds his first true love, Em Lewin, played by Kristen Stewart.
And, here’s where the plot somewhat thickens. Although Em slowly falls for James, she has secretly been involved with theme park maintenance manager/stud (and married man) played by Ryan Reynolds.
Adventureland follows this relationship between the three people, and is for the most part quite slow. Eisenberg just plays the role of the awkward kid so well, you keep giving the film a chance to really turn itself around, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, Adventureland takes you on a pretty slow ride, where the laughs dry up pretty fast and the love angles remain unoriginal.
Kristen Stewart’s character is rather drab, and my suspicions of her being a rather poor actress are coming quite true. Even though her ‘lip biting’ and monotone routine have taken her through the twilight series with great success, she does very little to warrant a lead role in this movie. She fails to bring any life to her character, or the film.
In the end, as you would expect, things do work out in a way for James and Em. Things go a little wrong at the park when jealousy and lies throw a wrench in their love. Again, nothing too original here, the plot doesn’t risk too much ingenuity.
The Laughs
They tried hard for a few laughs, but it just wasn’t there for me.
Why should I watch it?
Kristen Stewart fans will check it out, but will come away disappointed. The rest of you may think it’s another Michael Cera film, because he and Eisenberg are almost identical.
For everything bad I pointed out about Adventureland, the conversations between James and Em are really well written, if you can deal with the pace.
What’s bad about it?
The plot is slow and predictable.
You’ll Like It If
If you didn’t have to pay to watch it.
The Verdict
Adventureland is quite a slow movie that is best watched if there is absolutely nothing left to rent. There was way too much talent in this film, for such a poor movie to be delivered. I’m shocked that Greg Mottola (director of Superbad) also gave us Adventureland.
