adventureland Plot summary (with possible spoilers): James Brennan (played by Jesse Eisenberg), a recent Oberlin College graduate, is looking forward to traveling across Europe with his roommate before heading to Columbia grad school as a journalism major in the fall. But when his parents pick him up, they break the news that Mr. Brennan (Jack Gilpin), has experienced some setbacks at work and won’t be able to pay for James’ tuition. So now James can’t go to Europe, nor can he go to Columbia — unless he gets a job.

Having never had a real job before, James doesn’t get very far when passing out resumes. In fact, the only place that hires him is a local theme park called Adventureland. There James is assigned to Games, where he learns that most of the attractions are rigged and that part of his job is to make sure customers don’t win the really big prizes.

The work is tedious and boring, but at least James can make friends with the other young men and women who work there. These include Joel (Martin Star), Frigo (Matt Bush), Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), and the ultra-cool mechanic-slash-musician, Connell (Ryan Reynolds). In addition, James meets Em (Kristen Stewart) and falls in love with her almost immediately — after she saves him from being stabbed by a disgruntled customer.

As the summer progresses, James and Em get to know each other better. They hang out, go out, and make out, with James falling for her more and more every day. But Em has her own issues to deal with, not the least of which is the fact that she’s sleeping with Connell, who happens to be a married man.

The rest of the film then shows the ups and downs in James and Em’s budding relationship, as they try to figure out what each one wants in terms of the other. If you’ve seen other teen comedies, then you already know there’s the inevitable breakup before the two leads eventually get together again. But even this bit of predictability doesn’t dampen the overall effect of the film.

My Reaction: I wasn’t expecting much out of Adventureland, mostly because it didn’t do very well at the box office. It only earned $16 million domestically, which was a far cry from what director Greg Mottola’s Superbad raked in. But I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the story in Adventureland. It ended up being a very sweet film that I think most people can relate to in some way. Haven’t we all had at least on sucky summer job that was saved only by the fun we had with co-workers?

To be sure, there were a few problems with the film. First, Jesse Eisenberg totally reminded me of Michael Cera. They both play the same type of too-good-to-be-true borderline geeks who somehow are able to attract the hot girls. I mean, there’s no way James would have hooked up with the hottest girls from my school, no matter how sweet he was. But since this is Greg Mottola’s fantasy, I guess it can play out however he wants it to.

In addition, I thought the Ryan Reynolds-Kristen Stewart pairing was disgusting. Reynolds looked sooo much older than the rest of the cast (save for the park managers) that it was creepy seeing him get it on with Em. And even though everyone was supposed to be college graduates, they looked and acted more like high school students, which made the Ryan Reynolds thing even worse for me.

Nevertheless, I ended up liking Adventureland far more than I thought I would. The great ’80s soundtrack definitely helped in that regard, as did a relatively strong script, which is not expected in these teen flicks. I give the film 4 stars out of 5.