Adventureland

Rating

Director

Greg Mottola

Screenplay

Greg Mottola

Length

1h 47m

Starring

Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Margarita Levieva, Jack Gilpin, Josh Pais, Wendie Malick, Mary Birdsong, Matt Bush, Paige Howard, Dan Bittner, Ryan Reynolds

MPAA Rating

R

Review

Can one’s first job redefine one’s sense of self or does it bring out the truth within as both a human being and a romantic partner? Adventureland tills familiar ground as losers and malcontents find a place in the lackadaisical and low stakes world of amusement park employment.

With this and Zombieland on his resume for 2009, Jesse Eisenberg quickly established himself as a cheeky, intellectual teenager whose awkwardness was utterly endearing. As a promising young man, Eisenberg’s character finds events spiraling out of control that force him to take on a Summer job at a cheap amusement park called Adventureland. There he meets a troubled young woman (Kristen Stewart) whose emotional welfare is cascading out of control caught between an unconcerned father, a shrewish step-mother, and a rock star-mechanic (Ryan Reynolds) using her as a sexual escape from his frustrated marriage. Eisenberg, inexperienced in love and romance falls in love with her and she with him, but her emotional baggage threatens their relationship and his sexual and emotional desires further damage their potential.

Superbad director Greg Mottola follows up his successful feature debut with a film that shifts from one contrived scene to another. Adventureland has a wonderful soundtrack of 1980s hits, but apart from the heavy emphasis on sex, it has all the originality of an ’80s teen romance, but without the rosy complexion John Hughes might have given it. This feels like a movie that tries too hard to explode the myths of the Hughes Era pictures while succumbing to the far-fetched and neatly-reconciled elements that gave those films definition.

This is the kind of movie that tries to evoke a rough edge on a complicated romantic relationship. Nodding at itself with regularity, the film holds too tightly to established stereotypes and narrative construction to become a more inventive picture. Like the film’s protagonist, sometimes one can try too hard to be cool and end up being just the opposite. There are rewarding elements, Eisenberg being one of them, but Adventureland wants to be exceptional but only does an exceptionally average job of it.

Cinema history is cyclically filled with young adults taking on their first jobs and finding friendship and romance. Every decade tries to resuscitate the subgenre and speak to the new generation’s youngsters in hopes of providing an emotional outlet and a feeling of camaraderie that will help define and exemplify a given era. Adventureland wasn’t alone in the 2000s attempting to speak to millennials with situations that they might relate to but it remains one of the weaker efforts. It’s a mediocre film that has some small moments of insight but ultimately feels like a retread of better films from decades prior without finding a way to evoke a sense of 2000s youth culture.

Review Written

October 29, 2026