whats-on

The Inbetweeners 2 (MA15+) *** Director: Damon Beesley & Iain Morris. Cast: Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Emily Berrington. WHEN you're on a good thing stick to it - that's the motto of the makers of The Inbetweeners, which began as three seasons of British television before leaping on to the big screen in 2011. If you've seen any of the previous misadventures of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil then you'll know a) what you're in for and b) how much you'll probably love it. Having run rampant in the Greek islands after finishing high school, this time the boys are up to more of the same in Australia. Via a cleverly filmed introduction we learn Jay (Buckley) is supposedly living the high life in Sydney, leading his down-on-their-luck mates keen for a pick-me-up holiday - Will (Bird) is hating his loner's existence at uni, Simon (Thomas) is struggling to deal with his worryingly clingy girlfriend, and Neil (Harrison) is, well, still Neil, ie. not the sharpest tool in the shed. Heading Down Under provides the boys with plenty of opportunities for shenanigans and embarrassments and the movie is gushing with gross-out gags, toilet humour and plenty of just-plain-wrongness. Thankfully it's refreshingly light on with the Australianisms, except for Jay's hilarious koala-punching intro. While it can't resist slipping a couple of ocker bogans in there, The Inbetweeners 2 is more concerned with taking the mickey out of annoying backpackers as opposed to piling on the Aussie stereotypes. The "spiritual" tourists, dreadlocked campfire bongo players, and the hostel lifestyle are right in the firing line, as are "Pommie morons" who get lost in the outback. Thankfully the interaction of the four leads is still great because it's an incredibly flimsy film otherwise. There are no lessons learnt, no character arcs and no deeper themes, which is welcome in a way due to the nature of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil and their states of arrested development, but it means the movie is pretty inconsequential. The laughs are reasonably constant for the first hour at least and luckily what's left doesn't run on too long after that because the film runs out of petrol (quite literally) and collapse in an anti-climactic heap at the end. What's going to matter most to fans is how often they laugh and how hard. The digs at Byron Bay hippy tourists are pretty good and some unfortunate incidents at a water park will certainly stick in the memory, so there's no doubting this will appease fans. If you haven't seen any of The Inbetweeners, you're either missing out on some hilariously juvenile humour or you're probably enjoying the fact that you've been missing out on some puerile juvenile humour. Take your pick.

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