by Daniel Johnson

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

HAMLET 2 (Dir. Andrew Fleming) Poor Steve Coogan. Like his fellow brilliant Brit blokes Simon Pegg and Ricky Gervais he's finding it hard to carve out a niche in the American comedy movie marketplace dominated by Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, and the ever present Apatow academy. This didn't make much of a dent when it came out late last summer but it didn't matter because Coogan was concurrently rubbing elbows with some of that comic crowd in TROPIC THUNDER (albeit briefly before blowing up). For his starring role in this wannabe indie quirkfest he sure gives a go of it as a high school drama teacher with delusions of grandeur in Tucson Arizona which he calls ("where dreams go to die" he laments). When he finds out that the drama program will be cut he stages the improbable sequel of the title in an odd attempt to save it. Student relations couldn't be any more tense with only 2 of Coogan's students (Skylar Astin and Phobe Strole being devoted or at least more interested than the group of outcasts and oddballs his class inherits. He cites teacher inspirational movie fare like DANGEROUS MINDS and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS when trying to connect to his class but there's very little that's poetic about his soon to dead society.

With Catherine Keener as his unsatisfied sarcastic spouse it's like SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK but with the artistic existential angst replaced with hit and very miss one-liners! Well, not really I just couldn't resist the reference. There are a number of genuine laughs throughout but they don't stack up into anything resembling classic comedy. It's too broad, only occasionally cutting, and Coogan is so over the top with his character that his antics would make Jim Carrey cringe. The Keener subplot involving a live-in David Arquette (who I keep mistaking for Ryan Gosling) should have been excised completely and the supposed show stopping song "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" frankly isn't that funny either. There is an air of deperation that permeates the entire production - Coogan's character may be misguided with a screwed up sense of artistic integrity but the cinematic packaging that provides his stage is just as unstable. Still any movie that has an over eager Amy Poehler (as an ACLU activist) assisting Coogan in chewing the scenery and Elizabeth Shue playing herself isn't a complete waste of time. If only it was named HAMLET 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO then maybe we'd really have something here.

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