Eye Candy #271 - "Adventureland"

Adventureland:  Completely misleading from the credits on, this was billed as a vaguely raunchy teen comedy.  It’s anything but.  In fact, for having Ryan Reynolds and Bill Hader in the cast, it managed to muster just ONE laugh out of me the entire time.  A coming of age story, involving a recent college grad forced to take a summer job as his plans to travel Europe get put on indefinite hold due to his parents’ money problems.  James (Jesse Eisenberg, who seems to be doing his best Michael Cera impression, which isn’t that good) gets a job working at “Adventureland”, a small amusement park in Pittsburgh, running one of the games in the midway.  As the job is stultifying in the extreme, he and his co-workers occupy their time with partying, doing drugs, listening to music, and sleeping (and attempting to sleep) with one another.   Various stereotypes are in effect, from the geeky, nebbish guy to the untouchable hot chick everyone lusts after, it’s hard to relate to any of these people, as common as they may be.  Kristen Stewart is Em, James’ love interest but there is so little chemistry there, it’s hard to root for them.  The only redeeming feature of this film is the soundtrack, which is comprised of tracks from the same time period as the setting (the early to mid 80’s).  It’s nice to hear Husker Du, Big Star, and The Replacements in circulation again.  Directed by Greg Mottola, who gave us the superior “Super Bad”, this film was mis-advertised, mis-marketed, and mis-fired.  Woodchuck sez, “Disappointing.”