Best movie ever!

A Disappointing Continuation

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Another film with Michael Cera as a somewhat odd and misfit teenager. Despite being 21 here, Cera still make you believe he's 16.With "Youth in Revolt", frequent TV series director Miguel Arteta - assisted by screenwriter Gustin Nash and C.D. Payne, author of the original novel - delivers a fun, weird and heart- warming little romantic comedy-drama. Appearances by Zach Galifianakis, Justin Long, Ray Liotta and Steve Buscemi add to the sense of strange humour, but the film really belongs to Cera and his special charm.

I suppose this film would be the most fun for those of around the same age as the protagonists, but the motifs of searching for true love, finding a way to change a stuck life and other details such as sex, drugs and violence can be appealing at any adult age. The mentioning of director Ozu^ (among other cultural specifics, such as 'À bout de soufflé, 1960) had me curios as to how un-Hollywoodian this film might be. And I guess it became pretty un-Hollywoodian, all things considered.Hollywood would probably frown upon the avid use of swear words, drug (ab)use, violence and the constant insinuations against Christianity and Goody Two Shoe-ism. But, more likely, this sort of film represents a new wave (though it's been going on for quite a while, with the likes of Seth Rogen and such) within Hollywood, to stay assured of reaching all possible audiences. Or maybe 'Hollywood' is a complicated term to define nowadays and in any case. So then, is there any higher ground here for modern day clever, but insecure youth of today? Well, what do I know? I just thought it was a fun film with a lot of maladjusted behaviour. Nicely acted (although Michael Cera seems to have only one facial expression: blank), nicely filmed, nicely told. But watch at your own or your parents' discretion, kids!7 out of 10.^ I have never yet seen an Ozu film, I must shamefully admit.

Dear viewers: the makers of Youth in Revolt would like you to know that they really want you to like their movie. They're willing to do whatever it takes. They'll give you juvenile sex jokes, partial nudity (but nothing too raunchy that might offend somebody and lose a vote), explosions, they'll give you names of philosophers, hints of sophisticated subtext, references to classic literature and quirky animation sequences, they'll hire top character actors and give them absolutely nothing interesting to do.Youth in Revolt tries so hard to appeal to everybody that it loses itself along the way. It vies to be the darling of indie-loving hipsters and hormone-addled adolescents at the same time, or in other words it tries to appeal to the Juno crowd and the American Pie crowd, but it doesn't manage to feel as quirkily likable as Juno or even the lesser 500 Days of Summer; it's also far too dark to fit in that category. For a run-of-the-mill teen sex comedy, on the other hand, the dialog, very clearly meant to tell the viewer that it's an intelligent movie for intelligent people, but clearly written with a thesaurus close at hand, feels clumsy and out of place. It doesn't help that most of the actors, Portia Doubleday most of all, clearly have no idea what the names and words they're saying actually mean. The film, in fact, stands out as one of the worst cases of bad line delivery I've seen in a while, which is jarring in a movie that evidently has a decent budget and high production values.The acting is a real waste too. Michael Cera has been playing the same character for nearly a decade now, and he generally gets away with it, mainly because he's adorably awkward enough to make the characters likable. It doesn't work this time, though; Nick comes off as en egotistical, whiny hypocrite who gets no love from the audience, and when he's playing his alter ego 'Francois' - well, let's say I'm starting to doubt that the kid has as much potential as I once thought he did. Cera doesn't take a lesson from Peter Sellers, Kevin Kline, Christian Bale, hell, even Jerry Lewis - all of whom played multiple characters in one movie and made it work. Nick is Michael Cera playing himself, Francois is Michael Cera playing himself pretending to be someone else, poorly. And while Nick is hypocritical and annoying, Portia Doubleday's character is spoiled, manipulative and deserves everything that happens to her. It's really a bad sign when you're watching a romantic comedy and rooting for the protagonists to not end up together.On top of which you have a bunch of excellent character actors and indie darlings who go to complete waste. Zach Galifianakis isn't funny, Steve Buscemi is bland and dry, Ray Liotta does nothing and M. Emmet Walsh clearly has no idea what he's doing there. The best acting in the whole movie comes from Fred Willard, all two minutes of it, which is a shame because his character had more promise than anything else in a movie.I guess a lot of people enjoyed this movie, and there's no accounting for taste, but in my opinion Youth in Revolt was so manipulative and pathetic that a couple of funny moments and a professional production weren't nearly enough to make me glad I spent 90 minutes on it.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this film, laughed throughout in fact, but as a whole I have to be critical. Including in comparison to other films similar to its nature and when it comes to films involving teens and sex, there are many to choose from. It's been a done a million times, so it's nice to see refreshing and moderately realistic scenario and character interaction, like that of "Superbad" or "Juno". The cast, for one thing is damn amazing. There are many excellent actors, like Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta, both did wonderfully. Zack Galifianakis and Justin Long were very well into their characters and I loved them on screen. A lot of the characters are pretty memorable, an aspect I enjoyed. I enjoyed seeing the character interaction which is the key to film-making at the base of it all. But Michael Cera as the awkward-nobody is beyond overdone. Sorry, but at this point I've seen too many times. Only when he's donning the Francois persona do I admire his performance and really embrace him as a character.Not to mention the whole plot at a glance makes his character seem rather pathetic really. He steals cars, travels hundreds of miles, sabotages the girl's education, among many other ridiculous things all for one girl who half the time doesn't really seem to care about him that much. It's a love story I just can't connect with despite my attempts to. So check this one out for some crude laughs but not a masterpiece by any means.C+