Written and directed by Greg “Superbad” Mottola comes a story based in 1987 about ‘how I unexpectedly spent my summer vacation’ yet at the same time feeling a bit like 1950s “American Graffiti.” James (Jesse Eisenberg) just graduated high school and while he planned to travel Europe this summer, he’s short a few bucks. But when his family relocates to Pittsburg, he takes the only job he can get at an amusement park that turns into an “Adventureland” of a different sort. Unlike a lot of these similarly themed movies – nerds, virginity, forced humor – this one is special. Almost darn right sweet. James displays cool trepidation, while the the new love of his life, Emily (Kristen Stewart) is mature and subtle. (Stewart is fresh off of “Twilight” while Eisenberg is best remembered as the misfit kid in “The Squid and the Whale.”) SNL’s Bill Hader and Kristen Wig play James’s employers – offbeat and quirky, while Ryan Reynolds plays the amusement park maintenance man – a cad of a character seducing young girls in his mother’s basement rather than go home to his waitress wife. The plot lines of the [summer job] kids’ parents are so real – death, divorce, alcoholism, and job loss – that they are reminiscent of our own teen summers when everything seemed to be the end of the world. You know the the kind of job we all used to have…throw a bunch of zit-faced, pot smoking kids together and talk about everything other than the bad job, and suddenly it’s August. And life goes on. Three and a half tiaras
