By now the opening weekend mania of Superbad has subsided, and hardcore Rogen/Apatow fans have already seen it. I’m sure you know the essentials by this point: it’s a hilarious, ceaselessly offensive teen sex comedy starring several relative unknowns. It was written semi-autobiographically by Seth Rogen (of Knocked Up fame) and Evan Goldberg, who lend their first names to the two main characters. It’s the stuff classics are made of, and this one’s sure to make plenty of VH1 “I love the 2000s” episodes twenty years down the road.

Superbad is the inspiring, heartwarming, hugs-and-puppies tale of two boys coming of age and overcoming obstacles. If you happen to be inspired by puke and heartwarmed by sketches of personified male anatomy, of course. Which I’m sure you are. The story takes place during a single day and night, which is apparently a prerequisite for a successful teen comedy. It’s the epic chronicle of two adolescent horndogs (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera) and their search for booze/”the ladies.” Humorous, yes. Adorable, sometimes. Uncomfortable, always.

Hill does his darndest to steal every scene, but after the initial shock of his relentless pottymouthedness wears off, his constant spew of commentary starts to become white noise. Cera, meanwhile, quietly shines — and has some of the funniest moments in the film (although the trophy for funniest and most inappropriate four-word line has to go to newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Most of the time Cera’s character was so adorably awkward that I just wanted to give him a big hug and say, “don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you’ll get the girl in the end — and probably learn a valuable moral lesson, too!”

On the road to obtaining booze and getting with chicks, the two boys (three if you count Mintz-Plasse’s Fogell, AKA “McLovin”) encounter an array of quirky supporting characters, including a pair of amazingly incompetent cops, a shady 30-something party crasher, and an inebriated woman whose time of the month seems to have come a tad early, ubeknownst to her.

However much Superbad might play to the lowest common denominator, in the end it never strays from the Teen Romp Handbook, which is actually quite old-fashioned. Some of the cardinal rules include: the underdog gets the girl, friendship is lost and then recovered, and love (not sex) conquers all. The high school comedies of my adolescence all followed these rules — think American Pie, Can’t Hardly Wait, She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You. Everyone always learns something by the end of the film and usually has grown up a bit in the process. Superbad is endearing, even sweet, in how earnestly it follows the conventions of these coming-of-age comedies. Even though it surpasses them all in sheer obscenity, it never entirely loses its innocence. No matter how hard the main characters try.

Superbad stars Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bill Hader.