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In Miguel Arteta’s adaptation of several books from the series by C.D. Payne, Michael Cera finally gets the opportunity to play against the geeky type he’s specialized in both on television and in features—at least part of the time. True, as Nick Twisp, a teen who’s bright but horny, shy and clumsy, Cera’s mostly doing the familiar shtick he’s mastered in the past. But he also plays Francois Dillinger, an alter-ego Nick creates—a smooth, self-confident fellow modeled after Jean-Paul Belmondo, the hero of the French films he loves. With utter disdain for propriety of any kind, Francois incites Nick to the rebellious conduct promised by the title, and Cera clearly relishes the chance to stretch.

And we relish watching him too, in both of his guises. But only fitfully, because despite all its pretensions to edginess, “Youth in Revolt” isn’t really all that different from one of the late John Hughes’ high school movies. The difference is that it’s told not from the standpoint of the girl infatuated with a handsome hunk but of the dorky best friend who helps her land him. Sure, it’s a lot raunchier—a quarter-century has passed, after all, and we’re in the Age of Apatow—and instead of helping the girl get the hunk, the geek wins her. But we always felt that Anthony Michael Hall or Jon Cryer would have been the better match for Molly Ringwald, anyway. Cera’s Twisp is just their more modern, more successful descendant. And of course the adults surrounding the teens are still cartoon figures, of one sort or another. Only the kids matter.

Still, that’s okay when the guy’s played by an actor so immediately appealing. Cera makes it easy to root for Nick, whose preference for New Wave French movies and vinyl records perhaps explains the fact that his only sexual outlet is of the solitary sort. His misery is exacerbated by the fact that his slutty mother Estelle (Jean Smart) is shacking up with skuzzy con-man Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) and his father George (Steve Buscemi) is living with Lacey (Ari Graynor), a girl Nick’s age—and getting plenty of action.

But when Estelle, Jerry and Nick decamp for a trailer in Ukiah because some sailors Jerry had scammed are after him, he meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), the girl of his dreams—sexy, forward and equally contemptuous of convention and adults. Unfortunately, her parents (M. Emmet Walsh and Mary Kay Place) are religious nuts and control freaks. And Nick’s dragged back home when Jerry thinks the trouble awaiting him there has passed.

That’s when things are complicated by Francois’ plans to get Nick back together with Sheeni. They involve a lot of comic crime that not only brings a new man into his mother’s life—libidinous cop Lance (Ray Liotta)—but leads to his being sent to live with his father in Ukiah, where Sheeni has been instrumental landing him a job. Of course, things go very wrong there too, partially as a result of the intervention of Sheeni’s laid-back, drug-addled brother (Justin Long), and she’s shipped off to an exclusive boarding school, which Nick and his newfound friend (Adhir Kalyan) break into. And there’s still plenty more plot to follow, some involving Twisp’s goofy neighbor (Fred Willard) and Sheeni’s preppy boyfriend Trent (Jonathan Bradford White).

There are funny bits scattered throughout the movie, but they’re sporadic and inconsistent, and it was a mistake to punctuate the live-action stuff with occasional bits of animation that get away with material that would never allow the picture’s R rating if they were done with real people—but aren’t very funny. And as a whole the picture doesn’t really build; it just ambles along from episode to episode, with Arteta adopting the same sort of shambling approach his lanky star does in his geeky persona. (The lackadaisical feel comes across a bit like “Adventureland.”)

Cera’s sheer amiability is enough to keep things fairly engaging even when the energy level sags (or Nick acts like a cad by using a gloomy classmate of Sheeni’s, played by Rooney Mara, to work out his schemes), and the opportunity for him to switch regularly to Dillinger mode gives him more to work with. But it’s not enough. Doubleday doesn’t really break out here (part of the problem is the inexplicability of Sheeni’s being involved with a stiff like Trent in the first place), even though she’s an attractive, sassy presence And while Kalyan adds some momentary spice as the pal who puts poor Nick to shame, the interventions of such normally guaranteed laugh-getters as Buscemi, Liotta, Long, Willard, Walsh and Galifianakis mostly fall flat.

“Youth in Revolt” isn’t a great-looking movie, but the somewhat ragged look somehow fits. One can imagine it becoming a cult favorite with a certain crowd—like the books it’s based on—but despite Cera’s considerable charm, the alternately scruffy and diffident tone that Nash and Arteta bring to the material leave it feeling both forced and limp.