Adventureland : ** 3/4 (out of 4)

Aah, the coming-of-age movie! They can be fun (Breakfast Club, Superbad), or they can be stupid (American Pie 2 and 3). But what they're generally about is the transition from high school (childhood) to college (adulthood). In this way, Adventureland is something different - it's about the transition from college to adulthood, whether that means grad school, working life, or just dancing your life away.

Oddly, it all seemed like high school again anyway. The main characters throw house parties when their parents aren't home, get horrible summer jobs for spare cash, borrow the car when possible, worry about their virginities, and otherwise act like it's just another school summer. Even the drinking looks like high school drinking, except that they don't appear to need fake IDs to get into the bars.

But I suspect that was the point. Coming-of-age is coming-of-age; the only difference is that some people talk about their comparative literature classes, while others keep gossiping and dancing, and everybody involved is still beholden to their parents until they choose not to be anymore.

...clearly I'm over-analyzing. Well, to keep it to the standard review bits: the actors were good, I liked the relative subtlety about the time period, the standard romantic comedy parts were relatively muted, and only the ending was really annoying. The movie got bonus points for using real video game noises, and lost them for not prominently showing them. And the trailer had nothing to do with the movie, which was nice.

** 3/4