Here's another movie that isn't quite sure of the tone it wants to take, the task it's embarked on, or the destination it wants to reach.
The first half hour or so is set up very nicely as Micheal Cera is a lonely geek virgin who meets and falls in love with a girl who may reciprocate his feelings. Cera, his friends, and the girl are all very nicely fleshed out teenage characters, who while walking the line between angsty caricature, never go over it.
Convinced he needs to be tougher to win her love, he creates an alternate personality who isn't afraid to do anything it takes, whether it be lie, cheat, or blow shit up. This is where the movie sort of loses it's feel.
What was set up nicely as a confident coming of age story, morphs into a sort of out of control, yet by the numbers experience, that loses it's way as more and more characters are introduced. There are certainly some laughs, but as the movie moves closer to finding out whether he'll get the girl, I seemed to care less and less about whether he got the girl. There was just too much stuff going on, too much weirdness.
Steve Buscemi as Ceras father is given nothing to do that a million other actors couldn't do. Fred Willard steals the scenes he's in, however. Justin Long as........I dunno, this was the weirdest character in the movie. Introduced about three quarters of the way through, his only purpose seems to be to add even more bizarre behavior to the script.
I think there's a good movie in here, but too much bullshit gets in the way, and an uneven script that seems less and less sure of itself as it goes along really hurts what looked like was going to be a fun time.
Not revolting, but nothing you need to go out of your way to see either.
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