Ryan Reynolds Movie:

		List Price: $44.99		Label: Miramax Salesrank: 7971 Released: August 25, 2009
		Our Price: $25.39
		Used Price: $21.98
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 08/25/2009 Run time: 107 minutes Rating: R

Description of Adventureland [Blu-ray]:
A sweet and slap-happy mix of indie coming-of-age drama and Judd Apatow’s scatological but heartfelt manchild comedies, Greg Mottola’s Adventureland is a winning look at the pleasures and frustrations of dead-end jobs and teenage kicks as viewed through a filter of mid-‘80s pop culture. The underutilized and always watchable Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) is a sheltered, introspective New York college grad who discovers that his parents’ financial woes will not only quash his dream of a summer in Europe (to enjoy its more “sexually permissive” nations) but require a move to Pittsburgh, where he lands a job at a dilapidated amusement park. There, he’s thrown in with a motley crew of eccentrics, small-town types and a few genuine free spirits, most notably co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), whose complicated past proves irresistible to his repressed psyche. Mottola, who directed Superbad and episodes of the well-loved Freaks and Geeks, and who once worked in a similar park as a teen, doesn’t shy from the crude laughs that make Apatow’s features so popular, but he tempers it with a wistful tone and layered characters that hew closer to his earliest work, The Daytrippers. Though ill-matched at first, Eisenberg and Stewart make a likable on-screen couple, and they’re well-supported by a terrific cast that includes such die-hard scene-stealers as Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park’s offbeat owners, Martin Starr as a Russian lit aficionado, and Ryan Reynolds as a former town tamer, now reduced to working as the park’s handyman. A soundtrack performed by underground faves Yo La Tengo and filled with a smart mix of hip cuts (Hüsker Dü, the New York Dolls, the Replacements) and period faves (Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus”) underscores the film’s blend of tentative emotions and broad laughs. -- Paul Gaita

Beyond Adventureland on DVD

Adventureland on DVD

Download the Soundtrack

More Hits from Miramax

Click and Print Your Own Adventureland Door Hanger

Stills from Adventureland (Click for larger image)

Adventureland [Blu-ray] Reviews:
A great soundtrack does not a great film make
2009-12-27 - I first heard of this film via the excellent soundtrack and the fact that it was based on an amusement park I used to go to as a child on Long Island. I really wanted to love this film but I thought it was just okay at best - it fell below average as both a comedy and a drama. And by the time the compromise was met the film was over.

As much as is not really the most important thing for a film to have characters that are relate-able or likable or not...these characters were simply pretty hard to care about.

Romantic inexperience or not the James character was just kind of stupid with deep insecurity issues and turned out to be a verbally-abusive jerk to boot (this didn't add depth to the character so much as maker him easy to dislike). Just because someone isn't a man-of-the-world with women doesn't automatically mean that they are completely insensitive and unlikable fools. This kind of deflated things just a bit, and no, by making him unlikable they didn't make things any more realistic. The characters in this film were all somewhat on the self-centered side of things, which made me feel as though it was an adult's version of a teenager (oh, of course the teenage Kristen Stewart character is having an affair with the married Ryan Reynolds character) and somewhat inauthentic. And the whole subplot involving antisemitism was just an unnecessary eye-roller.

The DVD is fine. The special features are average. Oh well, the soundtrack is still great.

Average
2009-12-25 - This is a movie about a boy with a high school crush. It is not a comedy! If you want to watch a great teen comedy watch John Tucker Must Die. This movie should not be listed as a comedy.

Adventourland
2009-12-24 - I am a sucker for a happy ending...and this has a good one. Also grew up in the 80's so enjoyed very much.

A solid 5 star movie with real substance
2009-11-29 -

This is the film Kristen Stewart was shooting when first approached about "Twilight."

Those expecting a comedy may feel short changed. Comic elements surround a bittersweet but ultimately satisfying core story and prevent it from getting too dark.

This is writer/director Greg Mottolo's reminiscence about a summer job in 1985.

Jesse Eisenberg ("James") and Kristen Stewart ("Em") have a lot in common. Both are out of high school and attending college in the fall. They meet as summer employees at an amusement park and are drawn to each other, but things are not all that they appear. He's a virgin, and she's not ... and there's a car crash there waiting to happen.

Roger Ebert wrote: "What surprised me was how much I admired Kristen Stewart, who in "Twilight," was playing below her grade level. Here is an actress ready to do important things. Together [with Eisenberg] and with the others, they make "Adventureland" more real and more touching than it may sound."

Take his word for it.

Kristen Stewart's "Em" comes alive as a real person you won't soon forget.

Don't expect laughs -- expect to be deeply moved.

This movie is honest and sincere, with real substance.





horrible
2009-11-22 - I lack the education needed to effectively tell you how bad this movie is. Save your time and energy and definately dont buy it.