Another little comedy that could

A wildly popular comedy with no Judd Apatow involvement? Really? “Juno” began its theatrical life sort of like 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine” – blissfully under the radar and no doubt better off had it remained there. Alas, like “Sunshine,” “Juno” picked up a head of steam off its precocious script and honest performances, riding said steam all the way to a $200 million box office take and a congenial Best Picture nomination. Don’t get me wrong, “Juno” is an all right movie, but it’s not that good.

The story is familiar to all by now. Our tragically hip 16-year-old heroine Juno MacGuff (an excellent Ellen Page) gets knocked up by a school chum (a deadpan Michael Cera) and must face the realities and decisions of young motherhood. To give up the baby, to abort the baby or to keep it? Director Jason Reitman’s supporting cast mostly sticks their landings, especially J.K. Simmons as Juno’s dad and Jason Bateman as the adoptive father of her baby. The movie’s weak link lies squarely in Diablo Cody’s Oscar-winning screenplay. Though at times effervescently hilarious, what Cody seems to be passing off as “realistic teenage dialogue” often sounds and feels overwritten and overwrought, leading one to believe that we’re hearing how the 29-year-old Diablo Cody would like to assume teens conversed rather than how they actually do.

Even casual fans of the film would be wise to avoid the single-disc edition in favor of the double-disc Special Edition, primarily due to Reitman and scribe Cody’s feature commentary covering all the bases and divulging more juicy tidbits than one should ever want to know. Every other conceivable supplement base is covered, including a surreal gag reel, featurettes on direction, production, writing and some deleted scenes wisely excised from the finished product. Perhaps the most interesting supplement, though, is Ellen Page’s totally committed screen test, proving for anyone still unaware that there’s some serious talent brewing inside the spunky little Nova Scotian.

There’s also a second disc featuring a rippable digital copy for portable media players; a move that could be construed as a little too hip for its own good, sort of like Cody’s dialogue.