The main character, James, is a sensitive comparative literature graduate spending his first summer out of college living in his parents house instead of backpacking across Europe. He is also on a mission to fall in love, which supplements/hides the second mission of losing his virginity. Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig (who wears the hell out of some high-waisted acid-wash jeans) and Bill Harder are hilarious as the goofy amusement park owners who have genuine affection for the seasonal labor they exploit, but the laughs in this trendy rom-com are widely dispersed: there are way more moments of mooning and dreaming, of awkward flirtation and philosophical waxing. The object of his affection is none other than Twilight's Kristen Stewart, who does a reasonable job here, standing up to anti-semitic shallow girls instead of vampires who sparkle in the sun. (I still don't get that movie.)
It's hard not to compare Adventureland with Juno -- Eisenberg is the sweet, pale, gangly nerd, Ryan Reynolds is the Jason Bateman seductive older guy who plays guitar, everyone in the theater wants to go home and buy the soundtrack -- but Greg Mottola's film is more cloying than clever or complicated, while still very watchable and dunked in creamy 80's nostalgia for those who are into that sort of thing.
-- A. RAYMOND JOHNSON
Previously > Zac Efron: Maniac on the floor no more
