"Superbad" plays like a sort of prequel to the hit comedy "Knocked Up," in which Seth Rogen portrayed a dumpy pothead who gets the babe in the end. In "Superbad" -- which Rogen co-wrote and which was co-produced by "Knocked Up" director Judd Apatow -- Jonah Hill plays a high school senior who resembles the once and future Rogen, a chubby, foul-mouthed porn addict named Seth who is determined to snag a girlfriend for the summer.

While Seth slobbers over a sharp hottie named Jules (Emma Stone) in home economics class, his best friend Evan (the reedy-voiced Michael Cera) quietly lusts for a shy girl named Becca (Martha MacIsaac) in math. Following the night-in-a-life structure of such gold standards as "American Graffiti" and "Dazed and Confused," "Superbad" chronicles Seth and Evan's attempts to score liquor for a graduation party, the better to bed the objects of their desires.

Greg Mottola, who made the terrific Manhattan picaresque film "The Daytrippers," executes "Superbad" with his characteristically light touch, even if it's used in the service of filthy sight gags, endless profanity and an inordinate obsession with bodily fluids, from semen to menstrual blood. Christopher Mintz-Plasse steals the movie in his screen debut as a nerd di tutti nerds, a kid whose fake I.D. reads "McLovin." The final two scenes of "Superbad" reveal a staggering degree of candor and sophistication in acknowledging the homoeroticism that underlies the teen sex comedy genre.

-- Ann Hornaday (August 17, 2007)

Contains pervasive and crude sexual content, strong profanity, drinking, drug use and graphic comic violence, all involving teens.