Hamlet 2.

"Hamlet 2 belongs firmly to Steve Coogan, which is fortunate since none of the film's supporting players prove to be the least bit memorable," writes Andrew Schenker in Slant. "And though it's rather difficult for a single talent to carry a successful comic enterprise, Coogan comes awfully close."

In the New York Times, Charles McGrath profiles Coogan, "regarded by many as a comic talent and innovator on a level with John Cleese or even Peter Sellers."

Updated through 8/25.

"I've always had a soft spot for [director] Andrew Fleming (Dick), whose rhythms are less pushy than other American comedy directors, sometimes winningly, sometimes to the point of flaccidity," writes David Edelstein in New York. "This one is on the limp side but gets points for weirdness. Coogan's mopiness is oddly riveting. And the inspirational climax, a musical extravaganza in which Hamlet goes through a portal in time and joins forces with Jesus, is so god-awful it is very nearly inspired."

At the main site, we're staging a little contest: "One (1) Grand Prize Winner will receive: a Sexy Jesus Doll and a Sexy Jesus Surfer Shirt; Five (5) First Prize Winners receive a Hamlet 2 Movie Poster and Bumper Stickers ('Rock Me Sexy Jesus' or 'Honk if You Love Sexy Jesus')."

Earlier: James Rocchi in Cinematical.

Updates: "Boasting a title more amusing than anything contained in its 90 minutes, Hamlet 2 concerns a failed actor-turned-high school drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona who, in order to save the school's theater program, stages the titular story," writes Nick Schager. "Coogan is given free reign to indulge in improvisatory buffoonery, and his pratfalling and verbal stupidity might have been brilliantly funny had Andrew Fleming's film (co-scripted by South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut scribe Pam Brady) found a way to suitably lay the groundwork for its premise."

Capone talks with Coogan for AICN.

Updates, 8/19: Paul Matwychuk talks with Coogan:

Q: Let's close on a short question. Is Jesus sexy?

SC: I'll take that as a loaded question. I mean, when you hear it in the film, it sounds like an error in judgment on Dana's part. But if you break it down and look at it, there will be people who will be offended by it - wrongly so. They will say you shouldn't apply that adjective to a religious figure. But that presupposes that "sexy" is an insulting, pejorative term, and I don't think it is. I would say that if you asked Michelangelo or Caravaggio if Jesus was sexy, he'd say He is. Is Jesus sexy? Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar seemed to take the attitude that he was. So I'd say, all in all, without being too controversial, in a certain way, probably yes.

Q: Wow. That's a much more thoughtful answer than that question deserved.

SC: You're very welcome.

"Hamlet 2 has lots more in common with Tropic Thunder than just an August release date," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC. "Both films feature the brilliantly funny Steve Coogan as a director who's in way over his head, and both films hit their comic targets with deadly precision, resulting in wall-to-wall laughs. Alas, both movies share the weakness of not giving us at least one character with whom an audience can empathize, and that's the little something extra that separates the comedy classics from the entertaining chuckle-fests. Still..."

Updates, 8/21: "Hamlet 2 is chock-full of overscaled comic notions that probably looked better on paper than they play on-screen," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "But the movie works best as a vehicle for Coogan's slow-dawning humiliation, providing a constant stream of circumstances in which his mile-wide oblivious smile can incrementally creep downward at the corners, his eyes drooping with the too-late realization of his own unwitting jackassery."

Josef Braun:

The residual damage of childhood sexual abuse is here rendered as grounds for hilarity! Racial phobias in the classroom aren't so much put to rest as capitalized as a launch pad for shamelessly exoticized teenage lust! Yet, curiously, Hamlet 2 is also one of the most deeply conventional movies you'll see this summer. No less than mainstream feel-good movies like Pride, The Great Debaters or Mr Holland's Opus, one of several movies it makes fun of, Hamlet 2 is a textbook go-for-it movie, as well as a let's-put-on-show movie, religiously observant of every last trope these subgenres imply, from the kids who learn to believe in themselves to the wildly implausible love interest to the even more implausible über-triumphant denouement. It's entirely possible that Fleming and Brady intentionally adhered to the conventional model as a way of emphasizing the film's seemingly incompatible let's-offend-everybody comic sensibility, but that doesn't make it any less tiresome to watch all the pegs fall all too neatly into place.

"There is an art to making an enjoyable lowbrow comedy, as bizarre as it may seem," writes Amber Humphrey. "It's the reason why deceptively dumb movies like Team America: World Police (2004) have achieved cult status and obscenely dumb movies like Hot Rod (2007) should never, under any circumstances be viewed - and incidentally, both were scripted (at least in part) by Hamlet 2 cowriter Pam Brady. There may be a fine line between stupid and clever, but the line that separates silly from moronic is just as - if not more - tenuous. Brady's good name is happily on the road to recovery, though, with this over-the-top farce. To quote Polonius from Hamlet 1, 'Though this be madness ... there is method in it.'" Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Kimberly Chun talks with Coogan.

"Coogan will do anything for a laugh, and given how little he has to work with, he must," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "It's impressive that he can fill the screen, though he's still regularly upstaged by Catherine Keener in her specialty role as castrating spouse, never more inspired than when playing a scene with a margarita as big as a birdbath."

"Tossing in Jesus, Einstein, Hillary Clinton and a gay men's chorus along with overblown production values, the play-within-a-movie offers a few silly chuckles where riotous laughter is called for, and gently trots out fish-in-a-barrel targets without actually daring to trample too many sensibilities," writes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. "Like the film as a whole, it's a hit-or-miss affair that's too often funnier to describe than it is to watch."

"[T]he movie is funny, but too nonchalant to satirize theatrical ambition, uptight administrators, or anything else," writes Jesse Hassenger in the L Magazine. "But eventually, in a move telegraphed early and then dropped for a bit, Hamlet 2 becomes a sly parody of inspirational teacher pictures, particularly their solipsistic sense of healing."

Armond White in the New York Press: "One of its best points - and one of the brightest movie moments of the year - is Elisabeth Shue's participation not just as herself but as a fortysomething Hollywood has-been. She redefines what 'celebrity' is worth and redeems herself."

Mark Olsen talks with Fleming and Brady for the Los Angeles Times.

Scott Tobias talks with Coogan for the AV Club.

At indieWIRE, Eric Kohn talks with the players behind the $10 million buy at Sundance in January.

Sean Axmaker talks with Coogan at the Parallax View.

"There's nothing remarkable, or witty, or particularly engaging about Hamlet 2, a ragged comedy about a failed actor who tries to mount a science-fiction musical sequel to Shakespeare's tragedy in a Tucson, Ariz, high school," writes Time's Richard Corliss. "But at the movie's damp little heart there is a poignant truth: all actors' desperate neediness to win the appreciation and approval of the audience, which is anyone they meet.... Hamlet 2 is as needy as its hero - because it wants not to be probing or profound or even witty but, above all else, to be loved."

FilmInFocus talks with Coogan.

Updates, 8/22: Andrew Wright in the Stranger: "[E]ven if the film's level of invention sputters here and there, its star is really something to see, creating a gurning, fearless portrayal of Americanus idiotus that even Chris Elliott might envy. (I can think of no higher praise.) I could try to explain why Coogan's split-second imitation of Groucho Marx is the funniest thing I've seen in, like, months, but plotzing is a real risk."

"Throughout Hamlet 2, there's a sense that Mr Fleming and Ms Brady hit upon their howler title and then counted on riffing and chortling their way to a strong finish," writes Nicolas Rapold in the New York Sun. "Stuffed as it is with drama-class jokes (think Waiting for Guffman), that's not implausible. But Mr Coogan is better when he can work harder than this."

"Oh, how often in Hamlet 2 does a too too solid joke melt, thaw, and resolve itself into doodoo!" exclaims Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat.

"Hamlet 2 works so hard at being entertaining, in that quirky, Indie 101 sense, that it just grinds you down. It's the class you wish you could sleep through, taught by the guy who's convinced he's the students' best friend," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon, where Andrew O'Hehir talks with Coogan.

"It all adds up to the kind of bad family entertainment likely to raise only a few eyebrows," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times.

Roger Ebert gives it three stars.

"[T]he structure is there and the fuzzy boundaries between the tried-and-true and the outrageous never fully coalesce," writes Leonard Klady for Movie City News. "It's a scatter gun approach that's fitfully amusing; getting along on the character's good nature and limited abilities when the premise begins to flag."

"Hamlet 2 is occasionally sloppy, with a finale so abrupt and incoherent that it feels like something is missing," writes the Oregonian's Shawn Levy. "But it's also pleasantly odd and truly funny, and it builds in strength as it goes along. Most of all, there's something queerly magnetic about Coogan, and he pulls us past the clumsiest stuff in the picture."

Update, 8/25: A guide from Peter Bowen at FilmInFocus: "High School Musicals 101."

Posted by dwhudson at August 18, 2008 6:18 AM