'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa': review

'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa' - Dir. Declan Lowney (15)

It's a familiar story by now: the successful UK TV sitcom - usually a small-scale, charmingly parochial comedy of manners or subtle character study - gets blown up to epic proportions for cinema screens, in a way that can't help but detract from what made the series work in its original form. That's not to say many of these films aren't fun to watch, especially for fans deprived of fresh TV episodes, but this tried and tested formula rarely results in anything that holds a candle to the small-screen original.

'The Inbetweeners Movie' could be held up as a good example of this well-worn trope working well: that film taking its teenage cast on a summer holiday to Crete is completely in keeping with the characters and the result is something very much in the spirit of the show. Though perhaps Armando Iannucci's 'In the Loop' does the best job of maintaining the spirit of its source, BBC TV series The Thick of It, in spite of transporting the back-room dealings and ineffectual PR spin antics of its British cabinet minister to Washington, DC. So, on a first glance, it would seem a shame that another Iannucci TV creation would be catapulting themselves rights over the shark on their debut big-screen outing.

'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa' - a new vehicle for Steve Coogan's long-running character co-created with Iannucci (among others) for radio comedy On the Hour, and the star of several TV series and specials since - sees the middling local radio DJ caught up in a hostage crisis and forced to become an unlikely negotiator between disgruntled, shotgun-toting DJ Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney) and the East Anglia police force. It seems like a set-up slightly off-kilter with the former chat show host's world, as gleaned over the years in shows like I'm Alan Partridge, but it doesn't play that way in practice. Happily this movie Partridge is as nuanced as ever and - though there are some broader moments to satisfy the film's wider audience - all the best moments stem from the character's trademark small-minded asides and from little character moments: for instance as he bemoans people who insist on keeping eggs in the fridge.

Fan favourite characters like troubled, ex-army Geordie Michael (Simon Greenall) and beleaguered, unappreciated personal assistant Lyn (Felicity Montagu) also benefit from nice, little bits of business which are simultaneously funny and which enhance these already rich characters - from Michael's revelation that he sleeps in a cupboard because "sometimes me brother wants the whole bed to himself" to Lyn's heartbreaking reaction to the fact that somebody is going to make a cup of coffee for her. For his part, as the nominal antagonist, Meaney's Pat is another subtle and surprisingly developed character, worthy of as much sympathy as derision - making him a fitting addition to the ensemble.

There are a few times when it falls a little flat in translation to a feature film format, with some gentle parody of Hollywood movies that comes off like B-Team 'Hot Fuzz', but for most of its length 'Alpha Papa' feels like a very good episode of the TV series. For some that might seem like an example of damning with faint praise but, as a fan of the character, nothing could be further from the truth. It's nice to spend an hour and a half with the infuriating, selfish, egotistical character that is Alan Partridge: rooting for him against our better judgement and sometimes even finding yourself touched by that ever-present, underlying sense that somewhere inside he's all too aware of his inadequacy. There's something very humane and humble about Coogan's Alan Partridge: on one level a figure of fun and a satirical assault on middle aged Top Gear viewers everywhere, but on another a strange testament to empathy and understanding of even the most wretched people.

'The World's End' and 'The Wolverine': review round-up + Interview with 'Frances Ha' director Noah Baumbach

My laptop went and broke the other day, so that's why (or, should I say, the latest reason why) I haven't been updating. Got a quiz to write for tonight (if you're Brighton-based, and fancy a challenge, get to Dukes at Komedia for 6.30ish), so I'll keep this short.

First up, I did an interview with director Noah Baumbach a little while ago for What Culture. That's available to read online here. Next up, reviews:

'The World's End' - Dir. Edgar Wright (15)

Full disclosure: I didn't grow up with Spaced and have only ever rated 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' as "alright", so take my opinion of this conclusion to Edgar Wright's "Cornetto Trilogy" with a larger than usual pinch of salt. This one takes on aspects of the sci-fi genre as a small town's inhabitants are slowly replaced with, what I'm going to call (to make it easier to explain in shorthand), robots - though in a way that feels like the zombie horde from 'Sean' meets the strange, rural-folk conspiracy stuff of 'Fuzz'. In 'The World's End', Simon Pegg plays Gary King, a middle-aged man who hasn't moved on since the greatest night of his life: attempting "the golden mile" - a 12 pub crawl across his home town - with his closest mates. However, decades later, everything has changed except for Gary.

The pubs themselves are now identikit chain pubs and all his mates have moved on with their lives and moved away from the small town of their youth. Many of them, including Nick Frost's Andy, actively hate Gary - making things all the more uncomfortable as he pathetically attempts to get the gang back together for one last crack at the mile. It doesn't go well and only gets worse when the robots turn up. That was originally meant as descriptive, but actually forms a pretty good anchor point to start my critique because, for me at least, the film was far more entertaining and engaging before the science fiction elements kicked in. The "former friends coming back together in their sad little home town for a pathetic pub crawl" story was actually really well worked for the first half-hour, with nuanced characters and genuine pathos for Gary: a complete prick, but one you feel crushingly sorry for nevertheless. With his mates played by Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman and the ever-dependable Frost, the film trundled along very nicely for the first 30 minutes as a bitter-sweet comedy-drama.

And then the film gets lost in long (admittedly well choreographed) fight scenes, exposition about this alien/robot threat and all manner of other things that actually detract from what's really appealing and interesting about the film as was: the human drama and the character arc of Gary King - who, reservations about the overall film aside, I think is the year's best original character [more on that to follow at a later date, when I have time]. Gary's arc is maintained and still carries the film, of course, but it gets bogged down in everything else that's going on. It also doesn't help that the film - nominally a comedy - isn't really very funny. It has a few chuckles and it's never less than pleasant to watch, but it's uncharacteristically gag-light by the standards of the creative team. I will say this for it though: what this film has to say about friendship is far more mature and rewarding than pretty much ever other "bromance" movie. There are a lot of similarities between this and the summer's US comedy 'This is the End' - yet, whilst that film is far funnier, this one is the more interesting and emotionally affecting.

'The Wolverine' - Dir. James Mangold (12A)

It's the wrong side of the two-hour mark and goes by extremely slowly - with far more green tea-sipping than claw-knucked action - but 'The Wolverine' is watchable and oddly compelling if mainly because of Hugh Jackman's charisma as the title character. Loosely based on Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's celebrated and far-better-than-this-movie 1982 mini-series, which sees Logan on a solo adventure in Japan, the film takes the character out East where he becomes embroiled in the familial intrigue of a large corporation, a few fights with the Yakuza, and a punch-up with an unconvincing CGI robot samurai. There's a neat action sequence on a train and some nice moments for fans of the character (he even throws in a "bub" at one point), but James Mangold's film - strangely reliant on the maligned 'X-Men: The Last Stand' through extensive Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) dream sequences that might have been better left on the cutting room floor - requires prior investment in the character to be of any interest.

There are some odd cinematic allusions to great Japanese works, for instance one ninja fight sequence borrows imagery from Kurosawa's Macbeth adaptation 'Throne of Blood', and these might help explain the logic behind the film's mannered style and extremely slow pacing. This is probably the quietest blockbuster made this century - and that's admirable and makes for something weirdly fascinating, even if it doesn't really work as intended. It feels boring rather than intense or dramatic, but it's clear (and, again, admirable) that they were really trying to make a character-driven movie about regret and coming to terms with loss. I'm left wondering if they might have succeeded had Darren Aronofsky accepted the long-rumoured offer to direct, but - like his aborted 'Batman Begins' - it was sadly not to be. I will say this for 'The Wolverine' though: if modern superhero movies exist in large part as extended trailers for their inevitable sequels then the film did its job. Even before the post-credits scene, the film left me more excited about next summer's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' than I was going in.

'World War Z', 'This is the End', 'A Field in England' and 'Frances Ha': review round-up

Before I get to the reviews, I should (for once) make an effort to plug the Live at the Essoldo Cinema Podcast - the latest episode of which saw Toby and I joined by our friend Craig Ennis and director Ben Wheatley, to discuss his upcoming film 'A Field in England' (reviewed below). You can download that conversation here. Whilst you're there, check out earlier episodes of "The Essoldo", which launched earlier this year from the ashes of Splendor Cinema.

So... reviews:

'World War Z' - Dir. Marc Forster (12A)

I can only put the relatively kind reception this film has received from critics down to severely diminished expectations. It is profoundly terrible, but maybe not in the car crash fashion everybody had been primed to expect. Shot back in the summer of 2011, and subjected to numerous script changes and re-shoots since then, 'World War Z' was shaping up to be a disaster of notorious proportions: this generation's 'Waterworld' or 'Ishtar'. And it isn't that - at all. In fact, as I write, it's number one at the international box office and, whilst it's apparently still got a way from being profitable for Paramount, not any sort of box office disaster story. But it is completely and utterly rubbish - a film genuinely without redeeming qualities of any sort.

Terrible CGI (it's all helicopter shots of unconvincing computer-generated crowds, flocking through various big cities), non-existent action scenes (the climax involves a nap, a monologue, some meningitis, a can of Pepsi and interminable scenes of staring at a fairly docile zombie), thinly drawn characters (what is Brad Pitt's vital, most-necessary-man-on-Earth UN job supposed to be anyway?), gaping holes in internal logic (zombies that can topple city walls and push over buses, but can't get past a pile of office desks?), dubious politics (peaceful cohabitation between Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem attracts the zombies!), the worst-written child characters ever ("I'm scared!", "I need my blanket!"), plot threads that go, literally, nowhere ("my family aren't safe!!!"... um, well they seem OK) and... I could go on.

It's bad. It's a waste of your time. Writing any more about it would constitute a waste of my time.

'This is the End' - Dir. Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (15)

I've written here before, probably numerous times, that it's very difficult to review all-out comedies (as opposed to comedy-dramas), in that whether or not the film succeeds ultimately comes down to one question: "did it make you laugh"? Comedy is probably the most hit and miss genre out there, when you think about it, because there's usually nothing else going on but a string of gags and, if they don't work for you, there's usually nothing else there that's going to keep you entertained. In fact, being in a room full of people laughing at stuff you (at best) don't think is funny or (at worst) think is utterly moronic can be an alienating and irritating experience. Luckily, for me at least, 'This is the End' made me laugh more often than not.

It's got all the hallmarks of the sort of US dude-comedy that I don't usually like: every gag is more or less based around a bunch of slacker, man-child "bros" talking about sex, chicks, drugs and booze - with ample comic millage taken from taboo subjects, such as rape and masturbation - and, aside from a brief cameo from Emily Watson, there aren't any female characters whatsoever to break up the sausage-fest. Yet there is a real warmth to the central male friendships between (co-writer and director) Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill - all playing exaggerated versions of themselves. It's big, it's silly, it's broad - but the novelty of seeing these stars playing with their screen personas, talking trash about each other's movies and sometimes (in the case of Michael Cera) knowingly going against type, is often really fun.

'A Field in England' - Dir. Ben Wheatley (15)

This bizarre, sometimes unfathomable, mix of pitch black humour and sleep-disturbing horror won't be a surprise to fans of Ben Wheatley's other films - or at least to those who've seen the equally macabre 'Kill List'. Set during the English Civil War, 'A Field in England' follows a group of deserters as they flee a battlefield, stumble upon some magic mushrooms and become embroiled in an unsettling, occult treasure hunt, whilst ostensibly looking for the nearest pub. The performances, from the likes of Reese Shearsmith and Wheatley regular Michael Smiley, are enjoyably exaggerated and thespy, the sound design is magnificent and Laurie Rose's black and white cinematography yields wonders that belie the film's tiny budget - facts that all combine to create a unique sensory experience.

'Frances Ha' - Dir. Noah Baumbach (15)

Noah Baumbach films have a way of reaching directly, perhaps uncomfortably, into my heart and brain in a way that makes me feel as if they've been made especially for me. If 'The Squid and the Whale' seems to speak directly to my late-teens and young adulthood, then 'Frances Ha' absolutely nails that feeling of post-graduate aimlessness I share with many of my peers... I can only speculate that 'Greenberg' represents some future mid-life crisis!

Co-written by Baumbach and luminescent star Greta Gerwig, the film depicts Frances as she drifts between temporary, low-wage jobs, flits between various apartments and generally struggles to belong in the world of adulthood that she is nominally now considered part of. A wannabe dancer who looks destined to fall short of being quite good enough to really make it, this is the story of a wide-eyed kid who is gradually coming to the realisation that they might not get to be an astronaut and may have to accept being just another normal person. But that's OK. Baumbach and Gerwig deliver this timely and sobering message with a lightness of touch and touching humour that stops it from being in any way bleak: Frances maybe a bit of a fuck-up, but she's a loveable fuck-up and one I can certainly relate to.

This isn't simply one of the best films I've seen this year but, personally, it's the rare kind of film I can see making a lasting impression on my life in the way very few films can lay claim. Usually, at the very best, films find ways to challenge or perhaps just effectively articulate how you feel about the world. But, for me, films like 'The Squid and the Whale' and 'Frances Ha' seem to bring into sharp focus truths about myself that actually help me better understand the world I live in and my own place in it. That's possibly just me, but - in any case - that's a rare thing for a film to do.

'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'Ted': review round-up

Still waiting on buying a new computer so I never got around to posting that in-depth 'The Dark Knight Rises' critique I wanted to. And seeing as that film has now been out for a few weeks it feels like old news, so I may as well just write a little something about it ahead of an (even more brief) appraisal of Seth MacFarlane's comedy 'Ted'. Be warned, this is a sour grapes, spoilsport edition blog post, in which I actively dislike two films most people have at least enjoyed, if not broadly praised. I wanted to enjoy both of these, for what it's worth.

'The Dark Knight Rises'
Part of the problem facing this one is that I loved 'The Dark Knight' all out of proportion and, in enjoying it as much as I did four summers ago, I also became a fairly big supporter of director Christopher Nolan. However, since then two things have happened: firstly, 'Inception' came along and wore out any goodwill I had accumulated towards the filmmaker - being bloated, pompous, cold and extremely reliant on exposition (all flaws 'TDKR' shares to greater and lesser extents). Secondly, and more recently, 'The Avengers' came out and showed us all that big superhero movies could be unabashed fun - true to their source material without overly pandering to hardcore fans, yet broadly celebratory of their pulpy source material all the same. By contrast Nolan's films still feel embarrassed to have Batman in them.

Now, before people shout "bias", I didn't go in resolved to dislike 'TDKR' because of these factors, but I probably wasn't as pumped for it as I would have been a couple of short years ago. But what really stopped me from getting on with 'TDKR' was the film itself: overlong, self-important, and even sloppily made - with Hans Zimmer's score overpowering much of the dialogue and with a basic lack of storytelling coherency throughout. There are too many new characters. The film chops between too many disparate plot threads and far too frequently. There is zero sense of either time (months pass and we know this only because of dialogue) or space (people go from desserts to cities without the sense of physical distance).

The film is full of strange "joke" moments and throwaway lines that feel like they come from a different movie and are presented in such a cold and robotic way that they feel forced. And though Anne Hathaway nails it as Catwoman, and Michael Caine does some wonderful stuff with some otherwise over-written and melodramatic dialogue, it's a mystery how such a poor performance was drawn from the usually excellent Marion Cotillard. Don't even get me started on Tom Hardy, over-acting with his eyes and delivering his lines in a variable and barely understandable accent. I've been told he's easier to understand if you see the film in IMAX, with 7.1 surround sound - but that's not how most people will see it and, to me, that sounds like a poor excuse for bad mixing/sound design/acting.

The action scenes are technically impressive but lack any feeling of awe. The fistfights lack anything like imaginative choreography, tending to resemble to big men exchanging punches. Joseph Gordon Levitt is really compelling as a rookie detective, but gets relatively little to do (you could say the same for Catwoman, forgotten for most of the film's second half). Batman himself spends far too much time walking in daylight and his secret identity is shared far too liberally. Add to all this the fact that the film's politics are dispiritingly conservative, broadly supportive of the super-rich and cynical about those who would seek to redress the balance (the occupy movement is the obvious target, but not the only one in a film that's broadly suspicious of any and all grass roots social change). There are two tacked on, completely false feeling, romantic sub-plots - one of which is (arguably) relevant to the story but the other one is completely superfluous.

It's just no fun at all. In fact it's incredibly boring and goes on forever. I have to admit, I enjoyed it slightly more on a second viewing, with radically reduced expectations, getting swept up in the internal mythology of a trilogy that contains the ultimate re-boot ('Batman Begins') and one of the best (if not THE BEST) superhero movies ever made ('The Dark Knight'). But it still isn't a good movie. I feel like such a grouchy old man right now, but there it is.

'Ted'
If you thought I sounded like a fun-spoiling misanthrope above, then you're not going to enjoy this. Kicking a comedy - a film which only intends to spread laughter - often feels like a thankless task. And if 'Ted' has given audiences some laughs and distracted them from the outside world for an hour and a half, then all power to it. But for me - not a fan of 'Family Guy' by any yardstick - it was just a one-joke crass-fest and an extremely pointless one at that. That one joke being: "it's funny because a children's toy is swearing and fucking hookers!" A child gets punched in the face. People poo on stuff. Every race, creed and mental illness is casually mined for shock humour - with zero satirical intent or apparent meaning. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, and if I sound like a massive snob by saying this, then clearly you'll have more fun with it than I did.

I laughed twice - though I can't remember at what - and, for what it's worth, I like the initial premise: a classic 80s kids movie wish fulfilment fantasy taken to its horrendous conclusion. Yet otherwise it left me cold. The cast is solid, MacFarlane's direction is assured and the CGI bear works well with his surroundings - but that's about the best I can say for it.

'2 Days in New York' review:

Chris Rock and Julie Delpy form an appealing on-screen couple in '2 Days in New York', as local radio personality Mingus and struggling artist Marion - two perennial malcontents whose fragile equilibrium is disrupted by a visit from the latter's French family, to amusing effect. Rock, a big talent who's never really found Hollywood a perfect fit, really shines here, playing laid-back and charming where he would usually be typecast as loud and manic. Delpy, who wrote and directed this sequel to her earlier '2 Days in Paris', is radiant as ever and with that same attractive quality of not taking herself - or her status as a glamorous movie star - too seriously, whilst paradoxically giving the impression of having a tremendous intellect.

A lot of the film's humour is self-depreciating, but not in a way that feels condescending to the audience: Marion's worries and concerns, about her fading beauty and embarrassing relatives, seem genuine, even autobiographical in spite of her undeniable elegance. There is a deeply personal feel to '2 Days in New York' that is best exemplified by the continued casting of Delpy's real-life father (Albert Delpy) as Marion's father Jeannot - a scruffy but adorable old gentleman who falls somewhere between an unkempt vagrant and a beloved grandpa. A Los Angeles resident and naturalised US citizen, Delpy writes the cross-cultural comedy in a way that feels authentic, if exaggerated for comic effect.

In fact the whole things fritters unevenly between a small-scale, dialogue-driven romantic comedy, in the tradition of Woody Allen, and a much broader farce - perhaps in the tradition of older, zanier Woody Allen. Both aspects work and are funny in isolation, but the mix between urbane maturity and the bigger, more whimsical moments makes the film feel scattershot.


'2 Days in New York' is on a limited release in the UK, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Casa de mi Padre' review:

My appraisal of Will Ferrell's Spanish language oddity 'Casa de mi Padre' is now up at What Culture. The comedy, which spoofs Mexican soap operas - or "telenovelas", also co-stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. It's pretty funny and made with obvious love, but most of all it's an interesting one-off: a strange movie with niche appeal.

Anyway, read my full review here.

'Casa de mi Padre' is released in the UK on June 8th, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Men in Black 3' review:

'Men in Black 3' doesn't make any sense. I don't mean the time travel plot which, even if the rules are seemingly being made up as it goes along, is easy enough to follow. But it don't understand in on a much more basic level: it's existence makes no sense at all. And for two reasons. The first and most obvious is that the (largely forgotten) original films came out over a decade ago, meaning that their audience has long since grown up, whilst the kids of today surely have no idea who these characters are. Perhaps that wouldn't be a problem if this were just a brand new adventure featuring our besuited heroes, slap-happy xenophobes Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones), but the story and its intended emotional beats require some vested interest in the relationship between these two characters. In fact Columbia seems to be marketing this sequel mainly on the strength of Josh Brolin's eerily accurate impersonation of Jones as 1960s era K - something a ten year old in 2012 could care less about.

The second reason this movie makes zero sense is thus: Will Smith is the biggest movie star on the planet. He is the only guy left in modern post-star Hollywood capable of guaranteeing a hit movie by the mere fact of his presence. Since 2002's 'Men in Black 2' every movie Smith has starred in has grossed over $160 million. His is a star so popular that even vehicles as messy and bloated as 'Hancock' and 'I Am Legend' were substantial global mega-hits. And, prior to his return to Barry Sonnenfeld's sci-fi comedy franchise, he had been away from movie screens for four years. In other words: he could have named his next project. He could have made anything he wanted. Every major studio must have been hassling him with offer after offer. Quentin Tarantino supposedly approached him to star in his upcoming western. And he chose to make 'Men in Black 3'. Just think about that. For a man who has several times stated a desire to one day run for president, that betrays an astounding lack of ambition.



Anyway, by now it's clear I'm stalling having to write about the film itself and that's because there isn't an awful lot to say. I'll lead with the few positives. 'A Serious Man' star Michael Stuhlbarg is pretty funny as Griffin, an alien who can see the future with a fairly entertaining twist: he can see all possible futures simultaneously. This paves way for some neat visual moments (as he enjoys a future baseball game in an empty stadium), some entertaining comic bits (as he frets about whether various absurd and unlikely events might come to pass) and a few nice character details (such as his multiple layers of clothing, presumably in preparation for every possible future). He is easily the best thing in the movie.

Then there's the fact that the villain, Boris the Animal, is played by 'Flight of the Conchords' funnyman Jermaine Clement. Though Clement is underutilised he does at least read lines in an entertaining way. Another plus is that several of the most irritatingly wacky supporting characters from the two previous movies have been written out, with the talking pug dog and the vaguely Hispanic cockroach guys the most welcome absentees. Unfortunately they've been joined on the casualty list by Rip Torn (whose Agent Z has been killed off between sequels), though the actor's recent legal troubles probably account for that. The problem is that his replacement is Emma Thompson who, though an infinitely superior dramatic actor, doesn't exactly bring the funny. Her character, Agent O, is also embroiled in 1960s shenanigans (played by Alice Eve) and is supposed to have been a long-term friend and love interest of Agent K - something which is undermined by the fact she's never been mentioned at all previously.

It's also to the film's detriment that, as good as Brolin's impersonation is, there is nowhere near enough Tommy Lee Jones. His sly, taciturn delivery is an essential part of what originally made the J and K partnership watchable - whereas Brolin is cast as a younger, less grumpy version of the character who doesn't really have the same appeal alongside Smith's hyper-chatty hero. Barry Sonnenfeld's handling of action and spectacle also leaves much to be desired. For instance, several scenes include shots which establish nothing more than that our hero is "very high up" - quite a mundane form of threat in a film featuring lazer-gun totting aliens and quite a boring one for an audience that's presumably just seen 'The Avengers'. Then there's the stuff we've seen before in the series - as little silver guns make aliens explode - and stuff we've seen done much better dozens of times elsewhere - such as a car chase through the streets of New York (the characters might be riding impractical futuristic motorbikes, but they're still basically just motorbikes).

The very worst thing about 'Men in Black 3' I've saved until last, and that's its basic premise and single joke: that difference is inherently hilarious and that usually the "different" are not human. The film continues the series' proud tradition of revealing how everybody with a funny face or voice or a different ethnicity to the protagonists is in fact in an alien. See that Chinese guy? He's a hideous alien! Hahaha. See that supermodel? Models are all aliens! Hahahaha. Lady Gaga? Tim Burton? Those weirdos are aliens! Hahahaha. Repeat for almost two hours. And these freaky people can be exploded and punched without consequence or guilt because, well, they're not from around here. It's basically a light family comedy about ultra-violent immigration officers.

'Men in Black 3' is out now in the UK, rated 'PG' by the BBFC.

'The Dictator' review:

'Borat' was hilarious. A much weaker follow-up, 'Bruno' still had its moments. But 'The Dictator' - the latest comedy character creation from Sacha Baron Cohen - is just dreadful from start to finish, lacking atmosphere, laughs and heart. The story concerns a North African despot who is forced to go to an emergency UN summit in New York or face war over his pursuit of weapons grade uranium. However, Admiral General Aladeen is betrayed by his scheming uncle (Ben Kingsley more or less reprising his thankless role from 'Prince of Persia') and replaced by a simple goat herder with an uncanny resemblance. He then finds himself lost in the Big Apple, plotting to sneak back into the summit in order to unmask his betrayers and take back the fictional nation of Wadiya - a plan which involves ingratiating himself with Anna Faris, the manager of a small ethical produce store improbably tasked with catering the big event.

Baron Cohen's shtick has long been divisive, since the earliest days of iconic street wigga Ali G on British television critics have been split over whether he's a genius satirist or merely a man without shame, determined to say whatever offensive thing he could in order to get a cheap laugh. I have never been in that latter camp, believing even his most extreme comic bits came from a good place, with a social conscience that enabled him to lampoon bigotry rather than simply being a bigot. For instance, the palpable respect and uncharacteristic solemnity Ali G reserved for legendary Labour MP Tony Benn during one of his comedy interviews seemed to support the belief that Baron Cohen's integrity ran deeper than the pursuit of easy giggles.

Yet the target of the satire in 'The Dictator' is hard to locate and the level of wantonly offensive humour seems unjustified as a result. I feel like an arch and humourless Daily Mail reader writing that, but (and call me a busybody, PC square) I don't get what's funny about Aladeen playing a fictional 1972 Olympics massacre video game on the Nintendo Wii, mimicking the slaying of Israeli athletes. I don't get what's supposed to be funny about a dialogue exchange in which Aladeen talks about his sexual abuse of 14 year-old boys.

I'm not offended, even if (crucially) I don't find moments like these particularly funny, imaginative or inspired - my monocle hasn't fallen into my champagne flute in disgust that he dare joke about such things - but what does trouble me is that there doesn't seem to be any intellect or conscience behind his comedy at this point. He's just a man shouting "AIDs", "look, a black man!", "look, a gay!". He's becoming the unthinking school bully or the boorish workplace loudmouth, only with a budget of millions and a great deal of acting talent. He seems locked in a battle of one-upmanship with himself, in which he now feels the need to top each "shocking" and "taboo-defying" moment with another of increased savageness.

What is the point of 'The Dictator'? Is he perhaps standing up and saying "dictators do/say/think some pretty bad things don't they?!" If this is his point then I'd question whether it's really the work of a brave and near-the-knuckle comedy pioneer to satirise the world's most loathed dictators for the exclusive benefit of pre-existing enemies. Too often Baron Cohen seems content to indulge in broad racial stereotyping, such as when he arrives in America riding a camel. Jokes like these used to be defensible as sending up our expectations and prejudices, but here it just seems to be another throwaway idea and not a particularly original one. There is one moment near the film's climax where, perhaps inspired by Chaplin's similarly earnest speech in 'The Great Dictator', an oddly neutered Baron Cohen attempts to draw parallels between his evil dictator and the government of the United States. It could have been the film's redemptive moment but there's no real venom or force behind it and instead it comes off very weak.

It's also sad that in Admiral General Aladeen we have the least interesting character created by Baron Cohen to-date, the upshot is that we don't really even get to enjoy his Peter Sellers-like chameleon powers at their fullest. Then there's the litany of tired and (already) dated cultural references that jeopardise the film's long-term relevance: a play on the title of a reality TV series here, a dig at the expense of the Kardashians there; a cameo from Megan Fox. Perhaps the one bright spot, aside from a genuinely funny if overplayed sequence on a tourist helicopter, is the presence of low-rent comedy mainstay Faris as the love interest. Like everything else in the film she is characterised broadly and her comic moments are either crass or obvious, but she rises above the material to create an appealing character nonetheless.

'The Dictator' is out now in the UK, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Damsels in Distress' review:

"It felt longer than it was" said one cinema patron, checking the time on his way out of a showing of 'Damsels in Distress'. Never a good sign. But even worse when you consider Whit Stillman's hyper-stylised indie comedy - his first film in over a decade - lasts scarcely 99 minutes. Yet it really does outstay its welcome despite a beguiling first half and another fantastic performance from mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig, as the defacto leader of a gang of female students selflessly seeking to improve those deemed below their station. It's not that 'Damsels' is without charm, wit or laughs, indeed it's easy enough to see why many cite Stillman as an influence on the likes of Wes Anderson, but it's so resolutely deadpan that it can't sustain beyond the first hour.

It's also at times difficult to locate the target of Stillman's American college satire, with many of his characters so broad and extreme that they seem to lack a clear real-world analogue. There's, for example, the American girl who has affected a British accent after a brief period of study in London and the rich fraternity boy who never learned the difference between colours. Sometimes the film seems a wholly ironic putdown leveled at the vapidity and pretension of youth, yet it could also be seen as entirely earnest and sympathetic towards its off-beat gang of co-eds: the suicidally depressed, the confused, and the tragically dim. It might be that there's something really rewarding and ingenious at the centre of 'Damsels' for those prepared to weed it out. I remain at a loss.

'Damsels in Distress' is out now in the UK, rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists' review:

Innocent and family-friendly without ever being too cutesy, 'The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists' is Aarman's latest stop-frame animated feature film, loaded with the usual inspired sight gags, quickfire puns and unalloyed charm. Here, in a loose adaptation of a book series of the same name, we follow The Pirate Captain (as voiced by Hugh Grant) - a rubbish but well-meaning scourge of the high seas whose single greatest wish is to win the coveted Pirate of the Year prize.

However he has been thwarted in this quest for the last two decades by a combination of his own ineptitude and the fact that his rivals are supremely impressive shownman - as voiced by Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven and Lenny Henry. It is a pity we don't see them beyond two brief fleeting appearances, as each quickly establishes an entertaining character, but I'm sure they'll be back; This whimsically entertaining yarn, though it provokes broad smiles rather than hearty belly-laughs, has the makings of a successful franchise.

In his quest to usurp his more decorated colleagues in the running for this year's prize, the open-hearted and guileless Pirate Captain stumbles into Charles Darwin (David Tennant) who correctly identifies the pirates' "parrot" Polly as the last remaining dodo. Darwin promises the discovery will make Captain rich beyond his wildest dreams - making him a sure winner of the coveted accolade. But the lovelorn scientist has his own agenda (and a trained chimp for a henchman) and leads the band of misfits through chases and various mishaps over the city of London, bringing the plunderers into confrontation with the pirate communities arch-nemesis, Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton). Cue the big action finale, which takes place on board a magnificently realised Victorian warship.

Some of the humour is winsomely subversive - with the scientists of London inventing an airship simply so they can look down women's tops, and with Hayek's Cutlass Liz oozing a peculiar Plasticine sex appeal. At one point, whilst Martin Freeman's first mate is trying to restore his wounded pride, Pirate Captain reminisces about the simple joys of running people through with a sword. It's not explicit but it isn't strictly sanitised either. Yet even so it is somehow entirely gentle and lacking in cynicism - with these being less "jokes for the adults" than a key component of Aarman's long established anarchic, Pythonesque sensibility.

Imaginative, with plenty of quality gags and a heart of gold that won't tickle your gag reflex, 'The Pirates!' is good fun, rife with the sort of subtle parochial details that defined 'Wallace & Gromit' and 'Creature Comforts' (Blue Peter badges, custard creams and the homely charms of "ham night"). It's not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as the studio's recent computer generated 'Arthur Christmas', but it is certainly more refined and will probably better stand the test of time. That it remains quaint and understated in stereoscope is an achievement in itself.


'The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists' is out now in the UK, rated 'U' by the BBFC.

'21 Jump Street' review:

"We're reviving a cancelled undercover program from the 80's" says a police captain near the start of '21 Jump Street' - a self-aware comic re-imagining of the 1980s cop show that most famously launched Johnny Depp as a heartthrob. In this version it's left to a mismatched buddy pairing - of a sporty airhead (Channing Tatum) and a brainy dweeb (Jonah Hill) - to track down teenage drug dealers, as hapless rookie cops sent to infiltrate a high school posing as students. Yet they both have unfinished business left over from their own school days which ensures they are soon more focused on making a second go of high school life, with Hill unexpectedly befriending the cool set, whilst Tatum becomes the unlikely champion of the science nerds.

As former high school antagonists turned best friends it's inevitable when they begin to turn on each other during the second act, yet - in a refreshing twist on a tired formula - it's Hill who comes to marginalise the strapping jock, rather than simply seeing the two revert into their old roles. Sometimes the comedy leans too far towards knowingly shocking excess, whilst the plot and "bad-ass" aspirations of our heroes threaten to veer uncomfortably towards a right-wing fantasy, yet its heart seems to be in the right place thanks to the film's tendency to make everything as broad and lovably ridiculous as possible.

Hill and Tatum make for a funny and charismatic double-act, whilst the film's many in-jokes at the expense of formula cop series (like the original) and tropes of the high school comedy allow for a disarming bluntness about the stupidity of its own premise.There are perhaps too many action scenes, with car chases and gun battles now a staple of the Hollywood "dude comedy", and these do drag the film down for long spells. But when it's funny it's funny enough that you more or less forget all the bits you didn't like... and it's funny about 50% of the time.

Especially winning are the drug taking scenes, which seem fresh despite the fact drug trip humour has been done to death over the years: staged imaginatively and going to some fairly bizarre places. This married to the terrific interplay between the leads, deft physical comedy, and some unexpectedly great meta-humour, ensured I laughed long into the credits - possibly for the first time since the last film from directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (2009's criminally overlooked Sony animation 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs'). There's also a very clever cameo that's almost of 'Zombieland' proportions - and which you certainly won't want spoiled.

'21 Jump Street' is out now in the UK, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Polish Roulette' review:

Polish crime/comedy 'Sztos 2' - released in the UK as 'Polish Roulette' - is a sequel to the original 'Sztos' - its fifteen year old predecessor apparently being a well-loved modern classic in its homeland. Having never seen it I was at a loss for much of Olaf Lubaszenko's energetic and colourful follow-up. From what I could make out, it's about a pair of con men who try to get rich with a series of increasingly elaborate slight of hand schemes (none of which are roulette based, counterintuitively). Set in 1983, under communism, the duo travel around the country getting caught between the corrupt and incompetent government officials and their dissident opponents.

Lubaszenko's hyper-active style of direction ensured that whatever I was missing in the twisty, turny plot (which gets increasingly contrived and bizarre as the climax nears) I was far from bored. His camera is almost always moving: panning, tracking, zooming and swooping around the characters. Transitions between scenes have almost no consistency, with fades, wipes and even 80s music video style graphics (as when one scene parts like a pair of curtains to reveal the next). Some of the zaniest cuts between scenes involve huge CGI postcards coming towards the screen, before we zoom into a new location. It's certainly imaginative and oddly compelling, but very much a mess.

Just as odd is the music with the rule seemingly being that one of the film's half-dozen, disparate themes should come in (very loudly) to fill almost every silence. These musical motifs are short and oft-repeated (sometimes on a loop), with the effect that they quickly become unintentionally hilarious. The lighting is even more incongruous, varying wildly from shot to shot. Some scenes are bright blue and orange, others are red or green with purple skin tones. It's undoubtedly a stylistic choice but it's an odd one that reads as amateurish rather than inspired.

Get beyond a lot of these baffling stylistic choices and obvious technical shortcomings, and much of the comedy is dishearteningly similar to that of recent big English language releases. There's lots of silly drunken dancing (see 'The Inbetweeners Movie'), whilst one memorable sequence revolves around a man accidentally getting off with a transsexual, to the amusement of his peers (see 'The Hangover: Part II'). There's also some business with hash cookies, a visual pun that equates a tank turret with an erection and a scene in which a woman invents record scratching during a moment of intense libidinal bliss (in fairness, that bit's actually quite funny).

Some of the jokes that got the biggest rise out of the mainly Polish audience were somewhat lost in translation for the non-Poles, as you might expect with a comedy poking quite specific fun at the nation's recent history. For instance the biggest laugh was afforded a close-up of a sign in a restaurant, which apparently roughly translated as "People wearing coats will not be served".

Amid the larger-than-life buffoonery and nostalgic nods to fondly remembered restaurant signage, there are some clever bits of satire which take aim at the absurdities of a society disorganised with proud military precision. For instance an announcer at a regional train station repeats on a loop a reminder that the station's clocks do not show the correct time. An idiosyncrasy which aptly represents the spirit of Lubaszenko's charming oddity of a film.

'Polish Roulette' is out in the UK now (exclusive to Cineworld) and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'We Have A Pope' review:

Nanni Moretti's new comedy opens on a grieving Vatican as throngs of Catholic mourners mass in the streets following the death of a pope. They are sombre but also excited because, inside the corridors of power, Cardinals from around the world have gathered to agree upon a new pontiff. After several inconclusive rounds of voting - tied between the bookmakers favourites - the assembled religious leaders turn to a surprise candidate: the humble, shell shocked Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli). Melville, succumbing to peer pressure, reluctantly assumes the mantle of pope, but before he can be introduced to the waiting world he suffers a massive anxiety attack, brought on by feelings of inadequacy, and runs away screaming. Desperate to find a quick solution to this crisis, the Vatican's press officer (Jerzy Stuhr) calls in the self-proclaimed world's best psychoanalyst (Moretti), an atheist.

'We Have A Pope' reads like a recipe for high concept comedy and possibly even a ballsy satire of the papacy. Yet those expecting a damning indictment of the institution will be disappointed. Moretti declines to make cracks at paedophile priests or the church's irresponsible position on contraception in Africa. However there is some implicit criticism of the church which comes in two flavours: the first of these is a recurring joke which sees Moretti mix the sacred with the mundane. Here the Cardinals are made to appear slightly ridiculous - if in an affectionate, gentle way - as they play volleyball in full regalia. Elsewhere they are made to behave like slightly naughty schoolchildren. They are not exactly portrayed reverently, though their religious conviction is never placed in doubt.

The second (and much more effective) way in which Moretti critiques the church is in the organisation's handling of Melville. This is effectively the story of a bewildered old man being bullied into spending his last few years sitting in a glass box being waved at. Forgoing a lot of easy laughs, Moretti treats Melville's sudden depressive episode with utmost compassion and, in the second half, tips the film towards drama rather than out-and-out farce. It's possible that a lot of the comedy is in delivery and doesn't carry over if (like me) you can't understand Italian, because Melville's scenes - as he goes AWOL and wanders around Rome - struck me as more sad than funny. Moretti's analyst character certainly is funny, but - beyond one initial (hilarious) scene as he's introduced - his story is quite separate from Pope Melville's belated odyssey of self-discovery.

'We Have A Pope' is a strange film that doesn't go where many will expect it to - or indeed want it to. It could be considered frustrating, toothless and too slight, and I can certainly see all of those criticisms in it. But if taken on its own terms I think it's quite a poignant and faultlessly humane look at how a frail, mentally ill person in such a position would struggle to find compassion or understanding amongst peers who deny the existence of depression - especially in one supposedly selected by God. In their one scene together, the analyst is not allowed to ask Melville any of the questions he might usually ask his patients. Discussions of childhood, repressed sexual desires, his mother and dreams are among those declared off limits by the pope's advisers, who insist the session takes place in the middle of a large room full of Cardinals. It is said you can feel all alone in a crowd of people. Moretti, almost without judgement, is asking us to imagine how it must feel to be pope.

'We Have A Pope' is out now in the UK, rated 'PG' by the BBFC.

Charlie Brooker interview!

I've conducted an interview with one of my heroes - the satirist Charlie Brooker - whose new TV show 'Black Mirror' begins on Sunday. The whole thing is up to read at WhatCulture!.

My review of the first episode, "The National Anthem", is also up now.

'The Inbetweeners Movie' review:

British TV comedies making the transition to feature films have a track record that could charitably be characterised as less than stellar. 'The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse', 'Ali G Indahouse' and 'Kevin & Perry Go Large' are just some examples of what can go wrong when perfectly decent telly fodder gets inflated for the big screen. On paper at least, this year's blown-up cinema edition of Channel Four sitcom 'The Inbetweeners' - which comes with the no-nonsense title: 'The Inbetweeners Movie' - would seem to be following the same dreary trend, especially as it uses the tired "let's take the characters abroad" concept as the basis of its story.

Yet Film Four have bucked the trend winsomely with Ben Palmer - a director of the original series - presiding over what amounts to a high-quality bumper episode of the show. The film maintains a strong gag ratio as well as the astute character observations that serve as the series' best moments, all without jumping the shark in some bombast, hi-octane fashion. It's a consistently funny 97 minutes which sees Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Jay (James Buckley) and Neil (Blake Harrison) leave sixth form and embark on a sun-soaked summer holiday in Crete with the familiar aim of getting drunk and getting laid.



However, as anyone who's spent even minimal time in these characters' company before will know, our "heroes" aren't the coolest kids from their school. Jay talks a good game about sexual encounters, but is actually the most shy of the bunch when confronted with the "pussay" he so craves. Bespectacled Will, who again also serves as the narrator, talks himself into trouble at every turn with his boundless pedantry. Whilst Simon is as love-sick and self-involved as ever, especially now that his on-again off-again relationship with Carli (Emily Head) has hit the rocks indefinitely. Only shameless dim-wit Neil is without an obvious personality defect, in a strange way serving as the member of the group with the most appealing world view - even coming across as a good-natured innocent as he performs grotesque sex acts on game OAPs.

The Brits abroad setting allows for the digs at package holiday culture you might expect, but the film takes great pleasure in subverting clichés rather than conforming to them. The attractive girls who instantly and improbably fall for the boys are never treated as tacky FHM eye-candy either (with the vast majority of screen nudity being male) and the dynamic between the four main guys remains as engaging as ever. The actors might be in their mid-late twenties, but 'The Inbetweeners' has always been a far more realistic depiction of youth than we're used to seeing in the sexed-up, hyper-cool world of American "High School" films, or Channel Four's own 'Skins'.

Various narrative norms are also subverted to great effect, with each potential moment of sincere romantic feeling or dramatic heft immediately undercut with humour. This is a balls-out comedy that never pushes the dramatic envelope any further than its audience wants to go. It's content to entertain you, though that's not to say that the touching vulnerability of the four guys doesn't still shine through in a movie which always has its heart in the right place however crass and puerile it gets.

'The Inbetweeners Movie' is out in the UK now, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Mr. Popper's Penguins' review:

Promising a return to Jim Carey's rubber-faced and anarchic persona that it never quite delivers, 'Mr. Popper's Penguins' is a rote, inoffensive family comedy in which the title character (a slick-haired, shark of a businessman) learns all about the importance of love and family via six adorable penguins. The animals unexpectedly arrive at a swanky New York apartment as Popper's inheritance following the death of his father, an explorer, whose lifelong absence has given the character considerable daddy issues. The knock-on effect of which accounts for the character's failed marriage (to Carla Gugino) and relationship with his teenage kids, who he rarely has time for.

It's a tale familiar to anyone who's ever been patronised by Spielberg's 'Hook' or Carey's own 'Liar Liar', in which wealthy Hollywood types castigate working fathers for not attending enough baseball games/dance recitals, whilst espousing the eternal virtue of the nuclear family (Carey and Gugino must reconcile in the kids' movie tradition of 'The Parent Trap'). It goes without saying that along the way Carey must decide not to cheat a nice elderly lady (Angela Lansbury) out of her property, at the expense of earning a partnership at his firm, thus becoming a better man.



As with other recent live-action human/CGI animal buddy movies, such as 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' and 'Hop', a lot of the humour here revolves around fecal matter, with 'Mean Girls' director Mark Waters never missing an opportunity to show CGI bird poop streaming out of his CGI marine birds - to the audible delight of the child audience. Otherwise it's a succession of pratfalls amidst convoluted animal mayhem as the birds flood Popper's apartment, cause chaos at an arts benefit and stage a last-gasp zoo breakout in the name of madcap wackiness.

With this goofy premise in mind it seems odd that Carey himself, the gurning, limb-waving loon of 'The Mask' and 'Ace Ventura', gives such a restrained performance. There are isolated bits of daft, exaggerated comic business, but otherwise the actor seems to be continuing his decade long apology for having once been a comedian as he invests a lot of heartfelt sincerity into Popper's dramatic arc at the expense of laughs. Worse still, some of his better comic moments, such as his Jimmy Stewart impression, seem destined to go over the heads of the young audience altogether.



There is some fun to be had watching a supporting cast that includes Jeffrey Tambor, Phillip Baker Hall and Clark Gregg, even if they are underused and ill-served by the material, whilst British actress Ophelia Lovibond is a cute and mildly amusing presence as Popper's alliteration abusing assistant Pippi (a person whose primary purpose pertains to proliferating pronounced p-words). Though the intention is doubtless for the unimaginatively nicknamed penguins themselves to be the stars of the show: the squawking Loudy, flatulent Stinky, clumsy Nimrod, "adorable" Lovey, overzealous Bitey and flight-obsessed Captain. However, their cute appeal relies heavily on a retelling of the popular myth of the animals as dedicated monogamists and attentive parents, a la 'March of the Penguins'. And, even if you ignore the politics at play, animals that come into your house, crap everywhere and keep you up all night face a hard time being considered cute in my estimations.

Ultimately the flavourless, odorless, cinematic beige that is 'Mr. Popper's Penguins' feels like a Christmas movie released a few months early - possibly with eyes on a festive DVD release which could prove considerably more lucrative than this tepid theatrical outing. It's admittedly slightly more tasteful and watchable than the other animal movies of the last few years, but it's unlikely to inspire a resurgence of mid-90s-style Carey-mania.

'Mr. Popper's Penguins' is out today in the UK and rated 'PG' by the BBFC.

'Bridesmaids' review:

"It's coming out like hot lava" screams a character in blockbuster comedy 'Bridesmaids' as they unleash a torrent of diarrhea into the sink of a plush public bathroom. It's a line, and indeed a scenario, that wouldn't be out of place in any other Judd Apatow produced comedy, where it might just as plausibly have been shouted by Seth Rogen. Here however, the difference - and the selling point - is that this line is shouted by a woman, Megan played by Melissa McCarthy.

Co-written by and starring Kristen Wiig, 'Bridesmaids' is about Annie, a woman in her thirties who is watching her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) get engaged and wondering how life has passed her by. Her car is rusty, her cake shop closed down in the recession and she lives with a couple of creepy room mates (one of whom is played by Matt Lucas). Worse still, the elegant, high-society Helen (Rose Byrne) seems set on supplanting her as Lillian's maid of honour.



'Bridesmaids' is a rare comedy that gives women permission to be funny, to pull ugly faces and to fart in public. Unlike the majority of comedies which relegate female characters to disapproving shrews and the perennial, sighing babysitters of giant man-children, this is a film in which the few male characters play it relatively straight whilst a female ensemble carries all the crass, sweary jokes. In this way it both subverts and conforms to the lucrative Apatow comedy model.

It's hard to recall another film comedy in which women take centre stage (perhaps the Tina Fey penned 'Mean Girls'?) and 'Bridesmaids' should definitively put to bed the myth that women aren't funny, with a first half hour as solidly amusing as that of any comedy made in the last decade. Yet sadly the rate of laughs is not sustained beyond the opening minutes and for most of the two hour running time 'Bridesmaids' seems to forget that it's a comedy, getting bogged down in Annie's inevitable fall-out with her friends and with her mild-mannered love interest (Chris O'Dowd).



It's also disappointing that some of the laughs are so uninspired, desperate and lazy, for instance when Wiig plays drunk and cringingly mimics Hitler, asking an air steward if he's German. Or when we are asked to laugh as an overweight person runs towards some food. The more manic and exaggerated the film gets in pursuit of easy laughs, the less funny it becomes. These moments are made more disheartening by the early promise offered by a laid-back and naturalistic lunch scene in which Wiig and the ever-excellent Rudolph effortlessly convince as best friends, showing that Wiig as a writer and a performer can offer so much more.

'Bridesmaids' is far better than its only real summer comedy competition, 'The Hangover: Part II', and must therefore be considered the year's best out-and-out comedy. At times it certainly lives up to that billing on merit, but mostly the fact this is what currently passes for above average just highlights the dearth of quality comedy films being made right now. But at least the long overdue emergence of this film, and its subsequent commercial and critical success, should ensure women are allowed to keep on being funny on film. David Brent once said "women are as filthy as men", but it's taken until now for Hollywood to make a feature of it.

'Bridesmaids' is out now in the UK and has been rated '15' by the BBFC.

'The Hangover: Part II' review:

No film in recent years has made me quite as paranoid as 2009's 'The Hangover'. Everyone said it was hilarious - and I do mean everyone, as it went on to make half a billion dollars at the box office. Yet it just left me wondering whether I had suffered some massive sense of humour failure. "Why don't I get this?" was my bewildered refrain.

'The Hangover' had a few things going for it though: its premise, that a bunch of guys can't remember what they got up to the night before because they were totally wasted, seemed fairly original at the time (even if it was really just an up-market re-hash of 'Dude, Where's My Car?') and the presence of then-obscure funnyman Zach Galifianakis was joyful. Galifianakis is one of those comedians whose every mannerism and utterance is funny irrespective of the material and 'The Hangover' reaped the rewards of his charming naive-innocent act wholesale. However, these two redeeming qualities are largely absent from its sequel, 'The Hangover: Part II', with the film a scene-for-scene remake of the original (the tiger has been replaced by a monkey) and with Galifianakis long since over-exposed.



One of the sequel's main problems is with pacing. It takes an age for director Todd Phillips and his writers to contrive a way for all the conditions to be exactly the same as last time, with Bangkok standing in for Vegas. The guy who was missing in the first film, Doug (Justin Bartha), must again be absent from their escapades - though not before he's convinced soon to be married Stu (Ed Helms) to invite his deranged brother-in-law Alan (Galifianakis) to Thailand for the wedding. Phil (Bradley Cooper), of course, completes the "wolf pack" trio along with Alan and Stu. However, after going out for one beer, the trio wake up the day before the wedding only to find "it's happened again!" This time they have lost Stu's future bother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) and must retread their crazy, debauched trail looking for clues to find the kid - all in time for the big day. Every step of the journey is much the same as last time, with Mike Tyson returning and, yes, singing us a song.

As with the original, the funniest moments still belong to Galifianakis, such as when he shouts the unlikely line "when a monkey nibbles on a penis, it's funny in any language." That this is the comic highpoint should probably set alarm bells ringing, but at least he always looks funny, whether he is frowning at his new primate buddy or simply wearing a big hat. But 'The Hangover: Part II' is seriously low on written jokes. Mostly it relies on a heady mixture of institutionalised racism, school-yard homophobia and the popular assumption that anything is funny if it involves drugs and alcohol. For instance, one of the characters (I won't spoil which) comes to realise that he was "fucked in the ass" by a Bangkok ladyboy. You have to find this event funny in itself because there really aren't any jokes around it. The man in question gets upset that he's had a willy inside him and everybody else laughs. "Ha ha", they cry, "he's had a willy inside him!" In this context the issue of the accidental homosexual act quickly overshadows the character's infidelity. He thought it was a lady prostitute!



This lack of any decently written dialogue leads to the criminal waste of Paul Giamatti, who turns up halfway through as an antagonist of sorts. Giamatti gets to shout and chew scenery, but he isn't given anything really funny or memorable to do. I don't care what anyone says: Paul Giamatti has the capacity to be much, much funnier than Mike Tyson and any film which doesn't assign him that comic value is committing a crime against humour. Instead, the film is content for Ken Jeong's grating stereotype to return so he can say "erection" over and over again in side-splittingly hilarious broken English. When Phillips and company really find themselves struggling for laughs they just cut to shots of the little monkey smoking a cigarette. I'm not immune to the inherent comedy charms of that image but, again, it's pretty cheap.

'The Hangover: Part II', like it's forbear, is certainly better shot and lit than a standard American comedy. Lawrence Sher's cinematography breaks from a conventional logic which dictates that everything in comedy must be bright and loud. Instead, it's a seedy, grimy looking film and its use of Bangkok as a setting is diverse and interesting. The soundtrack is also pretty decent, as you'd expect with Wes Anderson regular Randall Poster working as music supervisor. The film's use of Billy Joel is fun, starting with a huge 'Glass Houses' poster in Alan's room and followed by obscure tracks like 'The Downeaster Alexa', which are employed well. A comic highlight is when Ed Helms performs an acoustic cover of Joel's 'Allentown', changing the words to tell the story of the film. Phillips also shoots a car chase sequence with considerable dynamism and no small amount of flair, though the very inclusion of this scene represents an increase in budget which will ensure that this sequel can't hope to repeat the vast profitability of the original. Especially when the ubiquitous marketing campaign is factored in.



If any of the humorous elements I've casually dismissed above sound good to you, then we can just chalk this up as another sense of humour failure on my part. I'm certainly willing to concede that just don't "get" this film. Maybe I just don't find the word "semen" funny enough. As is so often the case, this sequel is the same again done less well. I'd wager even huge fans of the original will find themselves a little disappointed by a follow-up that lacks imagination as much as belly laughs.

'The Hangover: Part II' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out everywhere from May 26th.