New Amusement Park Movie: "Adventureland"

[DBru]

^The movie was originally planned to be shot at the real Adventureland in Farmingdale, NY, but it was much cheaper to shoot in Pittsburg, so they took that option...

[printersdevil78]

Just got back from seeing it. If you weren't planning to see it, I highly recommend you change your plans. Not only are the Kennywood scenes amazing (and 80 percent of the movie is Kennywood scenes), but it's a good story, well told.

 

And I gotta get me one of those T-shirts on eBay!

[CHILLERLC1]

I plan to see the movie this week. I have off.

 

I can imagine how it's cheaper to shoot in Pittsburgh. It's a biotch to drive into Long Island from NJ.

[Hilltopper39]

I saw the movie today and was really excited about it but came away a bit dissapointed. Was expecting it to be more of a comedy because thats how the previews look, but it wasnt really that funny besides a few random scenes. Kennywood looked great, but the movie itself wasnt that impressive to me. Maybe my expectations were to high or something I dont know, jsut though it could have been a lot better

[ghost007jas]

I didn't care for Superbad much at all, so I'm glad that this is straying away from that type of film.

 

I'll probably see it later this week.

[FLIPDUDE]

I agree the movie's marketing is a bit weird. First time I saw previews it seemed like it was about to be a comedy, plus the fact that half the cast are known from comedic roles didn't help. I only realized it wasn't duirng another promotion ont he Jimmy Kimmel show.

 

 

I didn't like Superbad, so I'm glad this is different, but their marketing department needs to do some work.

[Jinx]

From what I understand, it's more a nice 'coming of age' story that takes place at a themepark - not a raunchy, sex comedy like Superbad. I would have preferred a sex comedy, but I'll still probably see it. Just not sure when.

 

It was exactly that...I was expecting it to be more of comedy too. It got great reviews from what I saw, but I didn't think it was that good. I thought Kristen Stewart was really good though, very unlike Twilight I wanted to smack her the whole movie.

[printersdevil78]

I can be honest and say I didn't know too much about the film other than what I read on these boards. Maybe having no prior expectations allowed me to enjoy it a little more.

 

Movies anymore are just so... well, bad that it really takes a lot for me to drive all the way out to the theater, pay $10 and sit for two hours with a bunch of giggly 16-year-old girls (the only other people I ever seem to see at the movies these days), and even more to walk out thinking it was a pleasant experience. I walked out of "Adventureland" happy that I paid $10 for the privilege, which isn't something I can say that often.

 

I watched the previews prior to the film and thought the same thing about all of them: "How on Earth does this crap actually get made?"

 

If anyone knows who owns the rights to "Welcome Back, Kotter," can you please let me know? I have a billion-dollar idea for a new movie version starring Matthew McConaughey as Mr. Kotter, Vince Vaughn as Barbarino, Owen Wilson as Horshack, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington and any of the interchangeable Jennifers (Alba, Connelly, Aniston, Tilly, Lopez or Love-Hewitt) as Julie. As the "story" begins, Mr. Kotter is introduced as a new teacher for inner-city New York kids at Buchanan High and is immediately pranked with a tray of cookies spiked with Ex-Lax (or whichever laxative brand pays the most for product placement). This sets the scene for a 42-minute diarrhea gag. The rest of the movie consists of the Sweathogs trying to get Horshack some action.

 

Absolutely nothing else in the movie has anything to do with the TV show whatsoever, except that the film will be produced, tongue-and-cheek, by "Up Your Nose With a Rubber Hose Productions."

 

And they say writing movies is hard work. Someone get Warner's on the phone. I want my $200,000 consulting fee!

[CoasterFanatic]

Just caught Adventureland this evening and I wasn't expecting too much after reading the reviews. Unfortunately, I didn't even meet my lower the usual expectations.

 

The movie does have some decent comedic moments, but there are twice as many that are meant to be funny and just come out flat.

 

From the Kennywood perspective, there isn't a whole lot to see. Other than some quick "stock-like" video clips, they only use about 3-4 locations in the park for various scenes: Outside the Jack Rabbit, Next to the Enterprise, Musik Express and the Palladium.

 

You won't find a too many bigger Kennywood marks than me and was STILL a little let down.

[Homeboy23]

I saw this on Saturday and I still haven't figured out which way they wanted this to come out as. From the trailers I was expecting comedy, but after watching it I can't see that.

 

The movie did have some spots that made me laugh, but the rest was dull. I would give this a 6/10.

[ChrisZer0]

Adventureland is like another film in the genre "Fast Times At Ridgemont High". You go in thinking its all about spicolli and mr hand, but it turns out it has three different plot lines (Spicoli, Brad, Stacy/Mike/Rat) and how they handled growing up. I liked adventureland, because it had a heart to it. It was funny, yet had sensability to it and felt real. 9/10

[thrillerman1]

I thought it was brilliant.

[Director_Guy]

I don't know, I didn't really relate to any of the characters. It wasn't that funny. The gal from The Messengers and Twilight was misguided in her interpretation of "acting". If it doesn't gel it aint Jello and it just didn't gel for me. Also, like Superbad, most of the characters were shallow assholes (well, I guess that is a very accurate portrayal of teenagers).

 

The theme park stuff was neat, but it'd probably be more interesting if I had been to the park before. Which just goes to show you that if I was distracted enough to look at the park I wasn't paying attention to the story.

 

These teenage "comedies" for some reason have this stigma of putting sex on a pedestal. Like it's the end all be all event. Even though the main character was a virgin, the fact that they made note of it means that its a big deal in the story. Not to mention (spoilers, I guess) that the movie closed with our two main characters bumping uglys.

 

It wasn't a terrible movie, but I don't think I'd see it again.

[Primogen18]

It wasn't really a comedy, but it had it's moments. Overall it was good, but for what they showed of the park, they could have just shot it in a HS gym or something, lol, but it did make me really want to somehow get to Kennywood soon. Moving to IN this year kind of hindered that, at least for this summer anyway.

[Volt]

This movie was well ...................... good.

 

The story was developed well enough to be able to showcase many genres in one movie.

 

8/10

[BarryH]

I saw "Adventureland" a few hours ago and I enjoyed it. I was expecting a comedy and I loved "Superbad" (one of the few movies that made me laugh out loud), but "Adventureland" was a pretty good watch.

 

So will we put James and Em in the romantic ranks as Nick and Norah or Jessie and Celine?

[coastersrule85]

I loved this movie! I, like everyone else, went in expecting something similar to Superbad, but figured out pretty early on that it was going to be something quite different. I thought it was...well....just downright sweet as all get out!

 

...that's right, I said "sweet"...don't judge me....lol

[shepp]

Yep, sweet. Utterly predictable but sweet.

[Defcon62]

I caught the movie last week, Being a veteran of toiling away my youth at a amusement park this movie took me back to the days of endless shifts, tiny paychecks, boy/girl drama, casual sex, heavy underage drinking and related partying and finally looped 80's music.

 

It almost brought a nostalgic tear to my eye..... Those were the days, so many memories most of them fuzzy.

 

It was not my usual genre of movie as it lacked full frontal nudity, zombies and deplorable violence but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I had wished that they incorporated the coasters into the production a little more though.

[ghost007jas]

I thought the movie was great, the acting was good (shocking, for me anyway) and it was very charming. It probably helped that I related to the lead, but I digress.. I'll definitely pick this up when it comes out.

[robbalvey]

So now that this movie is finally out on DVD I gave it a watch. (Actually ended up seeing it on an airplane...twice, but same difference.)

 

I had some real mixed feelings about this movie and I'm still not quite sure what I think about it.

 

I wasn't expecting it to be a "Kennywood" movie or have a lot of roller coasters in it because I knew it wasn't a 'roller coaster movie.'

 

I was, however, as guy who spent his later teenage and young adult years working at a theme park expecting to relate to it more, kind of like I was able to relate to Clerks from having worked in retail.

 

It hit on "moments" of what working at a theme park is like, but I think it missed the mark quite a bit. Some moments seemed real, like the hanging out in the parking lot after work, post-work parties, mixed up romance, constant flirting, random drama, telling everyone not to tell anyone else about this chick you went on a date with, in-jokes for work stuff "Giant Ass Panda", and general camaraderie between employees during slow times are all true.

 

But like I said I felt they were just "moments." And to be honest, many of these moments could have slotted into any theme - group of people working at a mall, group of friends on a vacation, college life, etc.

 

Like the movie kind of forgot it was supposed to be about kids working in an amusement park and veered off to the more serious dramatic side of the movie and then would come back with one of those "I can't believe how many times they play this song" or "Giant Ass Panda" quips to remind you what the key thread of the movie was supposed to be.

 

If you look at the trailer on page 2 it makes it look like the movie is nothing but "people working at a park", but I just for whatever reason didn't quite get that from watching the movie.

 

Really, I think the "Giant Ass Panda" gag was the only real running amusement park joke in the whole movie (and that was pretty darn funny, though!)

 

The rest of the movie seemed to take itself WAAAAY too seriously. My overall memory of working at a park was "god damn, that was some fun, FUN times!" (Read Kevin Yee's "Mouse Trap" book which was written about a group of us that all worked at Disneyland together and you'll see!) But I didn't get that much sense of "fun" out of this movie.

 

I dunno, I didn't hate the movie, but I didn't love it either. I guess I just really expected that I'd come away being able to relate to it a bit more. I was expecting it to be for amusement park employees what "Clerks was for retail employees" or what "Fast Times was for high school kids" and it was more of a slow paced teenage (even though the characters were over 21) drama.

 

On one hand I really appreciated the moments that "brought me back" to the days of working at a park, but overall I felt there was so much more they could have done with that premise.

 

--Robb

[Emiroo]

^ I second all that.

 

The film itself was at best a mediocre teen drama/romance. In fact, had it not been shrouded with the amusement park veil, I probably wouldn't have finished it. My non-enthusiast wife happens to really like teen drama/romance movies and she fell asleep 30 minutes in.

 

The enthusiast part of me really wanted to like Adventureland and I do applaud the movie's concept and setup. However, there was just way too many missed opportunities for true comic gold and theme park insight. And the fact of the matter is that Kennywood itself really wasn't featured as prominently as expected. I'd say more than half the movie takes plays outside of the park. And even when in the park, rides are only shown in a handful of scenes. The vast majority of in-park scenes are at game stands or the arcade. The film was shot on location at Kennywood, but the truth is that the entire thing just as easily could have been done on a soundstage with some B-roll establishing shots and you probably wouldn't notice the difference. It's a shame they didn't use the park more to their advantage. And an on-ride scene would have been nice to have seen as well.

 

Still, the Giant A$$ Panda, Amadeus and nutshots will keep you entertained. The main character is also very likeable and his dry wit will keep you laughing. ("That's me. I'm panty stain." ) Unfortunately, the director keeps him kind of reigned in and he's never allowed to let that wit really run free. It's a shame too because when you do get glimpses of it, it just reminds you of how great the film could have been.

 

So for me, the final analysis is that Adventureland is a missed opportunity. Not only from an theme park enthusiast perspective but from the movie enthusiast perspective as well. Worth a viewing, but check your inner coaster nerd at the door and keep your overall expectations in line.

[ryno1986]

I'm guessing they played down the theme park setting because they didn't think the general audience would relate. I still enjoyed the movie though.

[ginzo]

I saw this movie when it was in the theater and was greatly disappointed with it. Having a Y-chromosome, I'm just not into romantic comedies.

 

Maybe it's my bad for not properly reading up on the film before I went to see it. Somehow I thought the previews over emphasized the comedy and under emphasized the romance/drama. But the movie turned out to be 90% romance/drama and maybe 10% comedy.

 

Since I've never worked in an amusement park, I can't really relate on that front. But as a coaster nerd, I was *hoping* for more coaster footage or something.

 

Ultimately, I think this movie had very little to do with amusement parks in general. I think it was just a backdrop for the main focus, which was drama. And just a touch of comedic relief was thrown in to make it not too depressing.

[chemical_echo]

I guess the movie relates to you more depending what kind of experience you had working at a park.

 

For me and my friend that went to see it, we both worked at the same park in the same time period and were able to see all of our coworkers in pretty much every character. Where robb's memory of working at a park was "god damn, that was some fun, FUN times!" Mine was "god damn, that was some fun, FUN times!..but some of the people really know how to suck that fun out and treat you like shit"

 

As for not enough ride footage...the main characters of the movie were games employees, why would they show more ride employees and ride footage when they are just secondary people?