Star Rating: 3/5
Directors/Writers:
- Damon Beesley – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie
- Iain Morris – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie
Cast:
- Simon Bird – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, The Harry Hill Movie, Friday Night Dinner
- Joe Thomas – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, Chickens, Fresh Meat, The Darkest Universe
- Blake Harrison – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, Way To Go, Edge of Heaven
- James Buckley – The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, Everywhere and Nowhere, The Pyramid
- Tamla Kari – The Inbetweeners Movie, Cuckoo, The Job Lot, The Musketeers
- Lydia Rose Bewley – The Inbetweeners Movie, Plebs, Drifters
- Emily Berrington – The White Queen, Outnumbered, 24: Day 8, The Last Showing
- Freddie Stroma – Harry Potter VI, VII(i) & VII(ii), 4.3.2.1., After The Dark, Pitch Perfect I & II
- Belinda Stewart-Wilson – Primeval, The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, The Brother, Terror Island
- Greg Davies – We Are Klang, The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners Movie, Man Down, Cuckoo
Music Composer:
- David Arnold – Independence Day, The World Is Not Enough, Paul, Sherlock, Bond 24
- Michael Price – The Judge, Wild Target, Horrid Henry: The Movie, Sherlock, Tell The World
2011’s The Inbetweeners Movie was a phenomenal success both narratively and at the box office. On the back of the hilarious TV series audiences, with delight, followed their four favourite misfits on holiday in Greece. But the 2011 film was supposed to be a last stand for the cast. A sequel had not been intended at the outset and, to some extent, this is to the detriment of The Inbetweeners II.
Jay (James Buckley), Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas) and Neil (Blake Harrison posing in front of Sydney Harbour to prove that they actually did go to Australia.
The Inbetweeners II revolves round the four losers known as Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Neil (Blake Harrison) and Jay (James Buckley). Will and Simon are at university, while Neil is doing the odd job here and there. Jay, however, has taken some time out and has gone to Australia for a gap year. After reading a message from the teller of tall tales himself, Will, Simon and Neil decide to visit Jay to see for themselves how great Jay’s life is going down under.
The Inbetweeners II is a funny film. Its humour might be juvenile, crude and vulgar (not to mention misogynistic); yet, the movie delivers on its promise to make viewers laugh regularly and often. Like the TV series and the 2011 movie, the script has been superbly written and the four main losers have great chemistry between them. Arguably, the best parts of The Inbetweeners II are when the four of them are together in a car or walking around talking because, in more ways than one, viewers know people with similar characteristics to them (which is what made the TV series and the first film so amusing).
Will meets Kate (Emily Berrington), an old classmate of his from primary school, and immediately (and unsurprisingly) takes a liking to her.
However, watching the four loners make the same (hackneyed) jokes outside their small (crappy) town somehow dilutes the jokes’ effects. In the same way that one cannot take Hogwarts out of a Harry Potter film and expect the movie to have the same magical effect on audiences (Harry Potter VII(i)), one cannot take the inbetweeners out of their unique setting as half the gags no longer work.
Additionally, narratively, The Inbetweeners II runs out of gas between two-thirds and three quarters of the way through movie. Symbolically, this happens when Jay’s car runs out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. Yet, by that point old jokes have been rehashed, and the directors have cranked up many of the other jokes to eleven in the (forlorn) belief that making something louder and cruder equals funnier (which is always the sign of desperation and the exhaustion of ideas).
Simon’s girlfriend, Lucy (Tamla Kari), who has turned psychotic since the last film for… reasons.
Worse, the sequel does not develop the four oddballs. This entails that we don’t learn anything new about them and that they have not changed or grown up. This is disappointing as there have been events that have happened off-screen to the boys since the last film and some of these must have had consequences on their personalities. But, no: little of these events are divulged on screen and the corollaries of these events even less so to the disadvantage of the film and the Inbetweeners phenomena itself.
All-in-all, The Inbetweeners II is a highly amusing film. The humour may have plunged to shamefully depraved levels, but it will still have audiences laughing more often than not. Nevertheless, one cannot help but feel that the directors did not plan for this sequel and only green lit it upon the success of the 2011 movie. Whether it is the storyline; the direction of the film and the characters; or even the jokes themselves, The Inbetweeners II goes flat long before the end. Interestingly, in a recent interview, the directors said that they were ‘killing’ the Inbetweeners with this film and that this was to be the boys’ last outing. It would be no surprise if the directors get their wish this time.
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