In 2007, director Greg Mottola hit a comedy high with the hilariously raucous Superbad, a laugh-out-loud fest that achieved the perfect balance between raunchiness and syrupiness. Let's get one thing out of the way: Adventureland is no Superbad. To Mottola's credit, though, it's obvious that the director is deliberately trying to avoid repeating the same formula.

Loosely based on Mottola's own experiences working at an amusement park, Adventureland tells the story of James (Jesse Eisenberg), a recent college graduate forced to find a summer job after his parents inform him that they won't be able to pay for his future education in New York. With no experience whatsoever, the only job that James is able to land is at a second-rate amusement park - and then he immediately fails to comply with the place's golden rule: "Nobody ever wins a Big Ass Panda". James fits right in with the park's other employees (a charming collection of outcasts and has-beens) and understandably falls for cutie Em (new teenage idol for the Emo generation, Kristen Stewart).

Mottola's script plays every romantic comedy cliche ad nauseum, but favours melodrama over laughs. The scarce humorous moments come courtesy of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the awkwardly amusing park owners - it's a shame that they get so little time on screen. Adventureland's saving grace is its cast. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart nail their adorably flawed characters to a T, leaving the audience with no other choice but to root for them. It takes no genius to guess the movie's ending - or, for that matter, any of the plot devices. What's perplexing is why Mottola opted to make his comedy laugh-free.