THE INBETWEENERS 2 ★★☆
MA
Selected release (96 minutes)
The Inbetweeners started life as a cheerfully bad taste British TV series about four teenagers on the fringe of social acceptance, then morphed into a hit feature film about the same kids on schoolies in Crete. The Inbetweeners 2, its sequel, gives us a quartet, older but no wiser, who find themselves adrift in the Lucky Country
The franchise has two key elements: male friendship and uncontrollable bodily fluids. These are themes that have the potential to endure - The Inbetweeners 7: The Nursing Home Years seems perfectly plausible - although the show’s creators, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, have insisted that there is no prospect of another instalment.
in the meantime,The Inbetweeners 2, co-directed by Morris and Beesley, which opened last week in Britain, has just scored the highest weekend box office of the year.
After school, the four have gone their separate ways: Jay (James Buckley) the grossest of the four, has headed to Australia. He sends back ludicrously glowing reports and his three friends decide to join him Down Under, hoping against hope that his tales of endlessly obliging Aussie girls are true.
They have other reasons for their journey. Will (Simon Bird) is still smarting from the pranks of fellow students and a Harry Potter costume party humiliation. Simon (Joe Thomas) sees an escape from his controlling psycho girlfriend; and Neil (Blake Harrison) hopes he can fulfil his dream of becoming a dolphin trainer.
The focus remains firmly on the delusional quartet, confidently drawn and depicted. Things fall away around them, however: the supporting characters are less deftly written, and the female characters are particularly disposable.
The Australian elements seem hastily inserted and incidental: the movie could have been set in any country that had a water park and a place to get lost. But as a hymn to male bonding, and an exploration of the comic possibilities of what happens when a turd hits a water slide, The Inbetweeners 2 is a precisely crafted, assured piece of work.
