Joe reviews "Adventureland"

It would be easy to lump "Adventureland," the new teen coming-of-age comedy, alongside the usual dreck young actors like Freddie Prinze Jr. was putting out about 10 years ago, or more recently, that Lindsey Lohan or Hilary Duff has barfed onto the screen.

But that would be doing this fun little film quite the disservice.

"Adventureland" stars Jesse Eisenberg ("The Squid and the Whale") as young James Brennan, a bright young man who has walked the straight and narrow through his four years of secondary school and is looking foward to his four years at NYU with his buddy who has an apartment lined up.

Things fall through, though, when a "reassignment" forces his parents to rescind their cash graduation present, and tell Brennan he has to get a job if he wants to go to school.

So he hitches up to Adventureland, a run-down theme park, where the town's slackers all congregate to smoke weed, sleep around and try not to give away any "Big Ass Pandas" in the rigged carnival-type games.

He meets a host of strange, interesting characters: the bookish Joel (Martin Starr, the guy who couldn't shave his beard in "Knocked Up"); Connel (Ryan Reynolds), the older, cooler maintenance man who, rumor has it, once jammed with Lou Reed; virginal sexpot Lisa P. (Margarita Levievra); and the all-too-earnest owners of Adventureland, Bobby and Paulette (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, both of "Saturday Night Live").

And then there's Em (Kristen Stewart of "Twilight"), a pouty brunette who has issues with her new stepmom and is dallying with the married Connel.

There's nothing particulary fresh or even engaging about the premise, which sets up a rather pedestrian romance involving Brennan and Em.

For "Adventureland" it's about moments, like when Em lashes out at a co-worker who, after a night of drinking and smoking ended up macking with Joel, only to dump him the next day. Or Frigo (Matt Bush), Brennan's Bangkok-ing friend.

Eisenberg's cerebral, mumbling everyteen hero comes off as sort of a blockier Michael Cera, yammering off into some tangental commentary about his life as its unfolding in an attempt to keep a distance from himself.

Stealing the show, though, is Stewart, who ditches the squinty Jodie Foster act she broke out for That Sorta Vampire Movie and lets her body do her acting. She manages to be appealing, likable, but at the same time maddengly teenage at the same time.

She's the girl who makes all the wrong choices about men and love, and in her depression about her bad choices, makes more bad choices to cover up her previous indiscretions.

Hader and Wiig are prominently featured in trailers, but operate in the background, ducking in here and there to either grab a laugh or pull our heroes out of a bit of trouble they may have gotten themselves into. Hader's oversized mustache is an appendage all its own, and he makes full use of it, whether he's warning an employee not to give away any freebees to his friends or warding off an angry customer with a baseball bat.

If you were thinking about skipping "Adventureland," do yourself a favor and don't. Go check it out. It's hardly your typical teen sex romp, although it is exactly that, and so much more.

But the way it handles the themes it takes on makes it a much more mature than its brethren.

4 Yaps out of 5