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Adventureland (2009)

tomatometer

89

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 205
Fresh: 182 | Rotten: 23

Full of humor and nostalgia, Adventureland is a sweet, insightful coming-of-age comedy that will resonate with teens and adults alike.

88

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 36 | Rotten: 5

Full of humor and nostalgia, Adventureland is a sweet, insightful coming-of-age comedy that will resonate with teens and adults alike.

audience

57

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 239,669

My Rating

Movie Info

Inspired by writer/director Greg Mottola's own true-life job-from-hell experience, Adventureland stars The Education of Charlie Banks' Jesse Eisenberg as an uptight recent college graduate who discovers that he'll have to get a degrading minimum-wage job at a local amusement park instead of spending his summer drinking German beer, visiting world-class museums, and flirting with cute French girls. It's the summer of 1987, and James Brennan (Eisenberg) has just graduated from college. James is

R, 1 hr. 46 min.

Drama, Comedy

Greg Mottola

Aug 25, 2009

$16.0M

Miramax Films

Cast

All Critics (205) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (190) | Rotten (25) | DVD (20)

The story is semi-autobiographical, but has a gentler touch than his prior work on Superbad, and certainly relies less on slapstick episodes.

April 6, 2009 Full Review Source: New Yorker | Comments (2)
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Audiences expecting another dumb wallow will be startled, and I hope enlivened, by this movie's core of feeling.

April 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The youths of Superbad were a little bit younger, a little more likable, their dirty-virgin wit more hilarious [than in Adventureland].

April 3, 2009 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment (1)
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Adventureland isn't as clever as Kicking, and not nearly as hilarious as Superbad, but it's still a sweet little memory ache, a Proustian cookie co-flavored with semiotics and Whitesnake.

April 3, 2009 Full Review Source: New York Post | Comment
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Adventureland earns its edge-of-adulthood sweetness and has characters with real hearts under their goofy T-shirts.

April 3, 2009 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The movie does a very good job of capturing the teens and their times. Everything feels right, from the ups-and-downs of late '80s rock, to the way kids really behaved.

April 3, 2009 Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | Comment
Newark Star-Ledger
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The messages -- about silver linings in lousy jobs, the collision of hormones and heartstrings, and the adventure of discovering who you really are and what you really want -- ring honest and true, for any era.

September 29, 2011 Full Review Source: American Profile | Comment

Adventureland is ultimately an interesting but flawed mixture of Mottolla's early indie sensibility (The Daytrippers) with some of the more mainstream teen comedy elements of Superbad.

August 26, 2011 Full Review Source: IGN Movies | Comment
IGN Movies

The characters are pointlessly depressing, wallowing in their own negative emotions laced with pot-smoke and messy post-teenage sex.

June 27, 2011 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures | Comment
7M Pictures

Adventureland's young cast is strong, and, when the film works, it captures the languid limbo of post-adolescent confusion and longing.

April 20, 2011 Full Review Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI) | Comment
Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

A coming of age tale based loosely on the experiences of writer/director Greg Mottola, Adventureland is a surprisingly dense teen flick yet its unfortunate forays into religion bashing undermines its overall effect.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Matt's Movie Reviews | Comment
Matt's Movie Reviews

It's a bit slight and rambling, but also manages to engage us due to the sharply drawn characters

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | Comment
Shadows on the Wall

[Mottola has] done his job in making the work feel authentic, funny, and like a breeze to sit through.

February 23, 2010 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

Regardless of the well filled-out cast and the fact that it's structured like a comedy, Adventureland just isn't funny. There really aren't jokes and the overlong running time is mostly given to a standard budding romance.

November 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Examiner.com | Comments (8)
Examiner.com

Content to occupy that middle ground where insights are authentic but far from revelatory and comedy is more amiable than riotous.

November 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | Comments (2)
Lessons of Darkness

A funny, touching and honest film about a serious 22-year-old neither embarrassed by nor exulting in his lack of sexual experience.

September 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | Comment
Observer [UK]

Without recourse to frilly cuffs or a montage to A Flock Of Seagulls' greatest hit, it plays the '80s card for something heartfelt.

September 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Adventureland is reminiscent of indie movies like Breaking Away, Dazed and Confused and Clerks. You could put it another way and say it's not very original. Yet, watching the movie, you're too swept up in James's problems to care.

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

As a sweet-natured character comedy - and a subtle exercise in generic boundary-pushing - this is a real charmer.

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Its gentle charm and effortless eloquence personified by its winning lead, Adventureland is only marred by a rote final reel.

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

The whole enterprise is infused with a quality of feeling, an integrity, that is rare in such a commercial film.

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

A tremendously funny and touching coming-of-age story, which he has set in the 1980s with a sprinkling of nicely chosen cultural references.

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

Like all films that strike a chord, you'll find yourself replaying your own memories as the credits roll on a comedy that fires the heart.

September 11, 2009 Comment (1)
Little White Lies
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Adventureland

A movie set in the 80's some interesting charters with deent acting from Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. Watching this though looked Stewart channeled some of her Bella Swan to this movie but with a little bit more empathy. A fun ride.

April 20, 2010
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

If you were to ask me who my least favourite actors working today are, the chances are that Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Ryan Reynolds would come up pretty quickly. So no-one was more shocked than me when I actually ended up liking this film. It is a sweet 'summer of love' story that I have to admit was easy

January 12, 2012
SirPant

Super Reviewer

    1. Mrs. Brennan: You know, I think that Adventureland has made you regress or something.
    – Submitted by Monica K (2 months ago)
    1. Em Lewin: What the hell was that?
    2. James Brennan: It's just my life.
    – Submitted by Monica K (3 months ago)
    1. Tommy Frigo: You're such a pussy!
    – Submitted by Christina C (7 months ago)
    1. James Brennan: My theory is you can't just avoid everybody you screw up with. You can trust me on that because I'm a New Yorker.
    – Submitted by Cathy R (8 months ago)
    1. Em Lewin: My mom is losing her hair, and dad starts fucking a bald women? How's that for irony?
    – Submitted by Cathy R (8 months ago)

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