The Inbetweeners 2

Year : 2014

Genre: Comedy

Originally released in 2011, 'The Inbetweeners Movie' holds the record for the highest grossing opening weekend a comedy film has achieved in the UK, taking 2.5 million . It stayed at number one in the charts for four weeks, by which point it's box office takings had reached over 40 million pounds (yes pounds, not dollars). It parodied young Brits abroad perfectly, and anyone who has ever been on a lads/lasses holiday in their early twenties will have been able to relate to what happens to Will, Jay, Neil, and Simon in Malia.

Even though talk of a sequel was always always hush hush when the cast where interviewed, the monumental box office takings ensured that it was almost inevitable. Fast forward three years, and we have the inventively titled 'Inbetweeners 2'. This time set in Australia, Will, Simon, and Neil go out to visit Jay while he is working in a Sydney club as 'DJ Big Penis'. What follows is a similarly structured, not
quite as funny re hash of the original.

The film's location becomes a problem from the outset, as the lads are shoehorned out their familiar UK backdrops into somewhere wholly unfamiliar to the majority of the target audience. It doesn't work anywhere near as well as it should, and strips away an potential for jokes that a UK backdrop or Mediterranean holiday would allow for.

Characterization is hugely unbalanced, largely due to the fact there is only one female lead this time round, up and coming Brit actress Emily Berrington (Simone from 24 Season 9). The complete lack of any other female characters removes all of the warmth and emotional resonance that was evident in the original, and will more than likely alienate the fifty percent in the audience. I also felt the Australian stereotypes in the film were so hammed up they became almost xenophobic and potentially offensive.

Ultimately though, it's just not as funny as the first one. The humour just isn't there. There is literally nothing to compare to the now iconic club scene of the original. The film rapidly becomes a series of 'gross out' jokes, and relies far too heavily on profanity to get laughs rather than intelligent set pieces which was always the strong point of the tv show. Sequels rarely ever live up to the quality of the original, and 'The Inbetweeners 2' is no exceptional to this rule.

Worth a watch, but don't expect to come out of the cinema with the nostalgic feeling like you did in the first one, because you won't.

Three stars.