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It wasn’t just for lack of clean shirts that I chose to wear my Superbad T-shirt to the screening of Drillbit Taylor. In fact, my wardrobe choice was carefully planned—because I had the feeling that I was heading out to see Superbad’s prequel.
Like Superbad, Drillbit Taylor is the story of three pretty typical high school losers: the fat kid (Ryan, played by Troy Gentile), the scrawny kid (Wade, played by Nate Hartley), and the geek (Emmit, played by David Dorfman). Though all three kids see high school as their chance to start over—to rule the school, as it were—they become bully bait on their very first day. And once they attract the attention of the school bully, Filkins (Alex Frost), there’s just no escaping him.
Unable to defend themselves, the three decide to hire a bodyguard to protect them from Filkins. They soon discover, though, that bodyguards don’t come cheap—and the only one they can afford is a scrawny guy named Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson). He claims to be ex-military, though, and he’ll work cheap—so the guys hire him. But what they don’t realize is that Drillbit is just a desperate homeless guy who intends to take their money and head to Canada.
While both Superbad and Drillbit Taylor are comedies about geeky high school guys (and they were both produced by Judd Apatow and co-written by Seth Rogen), that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Drillbit is a completely different kind of comedy. It’s not as outrageous (or as obnoxious) as Superbad. Instead, it’s much more innocent—and it has the courage to trade some of today’s typically crude teenage humor for a little bit of heart.
Unlike the three kids in Superbad, who just want to get drunk and get laid, the three kids in Drillbit just want to get by. And that’s what makes the characters so lovable. Though their acting is far from perfect (Hartley, for instance, always looks like he’s fighting a serious case of the giggles), they’re just so cute and so painfully geeky that you can’t help but love them. And while Wilson gets top billing as the title character, the kids make the movie. That’s not to say that I don’t like Owen Wilson—because I do. But his character, while entertaining, just isn’t all that lovable this time around.
Though it has its share of flaws and plot holes and other picky little problems, Drillbit Taylor is at least consistently cute—and consistently funny. And you don’t even have to be a geeky high school boy to appreciate the humor. So if you still remember hiding in fear of the school bully, you’re sure to get a laugh or two out of this lovable-loser comedy.
DVD Review:
While this surprisingly cute high school comedy provides plenty of lovable-loser laughs, you’ll find even more on the bulked-up Extended Survival Edition DVD. For the most part, the extras are pretty standard stuff—commentaries, gag reel, deleted scenes—but they’re better than the average DVD features.
Though the commentary is a bit dull, there are a whopping 13 deleted and/or extended scenes—and the gag reel is actually really funny. There’s also a feature called the Line-o-rama, which features some of the movie’s best one-liners, along with plenty of unused improvised comedy. Also on the disc is a rather random feature, in which writers Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen talk about the movie—over the phone—while behind-the-scenes stills appear on-screen. It’s a strange feature, but it does have its entertaining moments—especially when Rogen starts talking about Rambo.
With a little bit more of everything, the Extended Survival Edition of Drillbit Taylor adds plenty of extra laughs. Keep in mind, though, that the extras are unrated—which means that it’s a little more violent and the language is a bit stronger. So if you’re buying the DVD for the kids, you might want to stick with the PG-13 version.
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