I have noticed a trend of late… and it comes in the form of weedy, mousy looking nerds. Gone are the cheesy over the top Freddie Prince Juniors of the teenage movie realm. It seems that nerds are the new black, and they have been producing movies left, right and centre. I must admit that I actually thought that the guy from ‘The Social Network’, and the guy from ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the world’ where the same guy. . . my bad. Let me fill you in.
Michael Cera scored the leading role in ‘Juno’ as the nerdy boyfriend who somehow gets the protagonist preggers. In ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the world’ he has to battle the seven ex lovers of his new love interest, but even though he kicks ass, there are still definite nerd vibes. Cera had a leading role in ‘Superbad’, alongside two other nerds (which I will mention shortly). Yes, he played a nerd in all of these films. The lovable nerd who makes us laugh with him, or at him, or both, I’m not sure.
Perhaps ‘Superbad’ was the movie that re-ignited the nerd trend. It introduced Jonah Hill to us, who is the token fat friend in majority of his movies, and it also introduced Christopher Mintz-Plasse who wore a seriously tight superhero costume in ‘Kick ass’ and was a complete computer geek obsessed with role playing games in ‘Role Models’.
Then we have Jesse Eisenberg, another lovable nerd, who you might recognise from such films as ‘Zombieland’, ‘Adventureland’, and more recently ‘The Social Network’. He also plays a nerd in all of these films, although he plays a nerd based on a real life nerd in ‘The Social Network’.
Moving on to the especially scrawny darker version of the nerd, Jay Baruchel. He played the unlikely hero in this year’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ and the guy who didn’t think he was good enough for the gorgeous girl in ‘She’s out of my league’. He had minor roles as the dorky sidekick in both ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘Tropic Thunder’. He can’t escape the dorky factor, and was even a nerd in the animated flick ‘How to train your dragon’, in which he voiced the only skinny kid in a village full of hard core Vikings! It seems that he can’t escape the typecasting, even in animation.
Nerds take note, the guys in these movies always, and I mean ALWAYS get the girl.
With all of the remakes happening this year, perhaps the 80s hit ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ is on the list.
