Shawn's Hamlet 2 Review

2008 Movie #132 - Hamlet 2

For at least 5 or 6 months before this movie opened, a movie playing at our theatre had some form of the trailer before it. I have heard that trailer easily 100 times. Surprisingly it never made me hate the movie. It actually gave me hope. I figured if the trailer isn’t driving me completely insane (obviously a little insane) then this should be a pretty damn funny movie. I mean Rock Me Sexy Jesus alone is worth a few dozen points. Some friends of mine saw it and absolutely hated it. I’m just getting around to seeing it now and I definitely didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t too good either.

The problem here is of course the biggest problem one can have with a comedy, I didn’t find it funny. It flips back and forth between being a more character centered piece, and an off the wall slapstick comedy. It’s not that great at being either one of those things. I wanted to like it, I really did. I was trying so hard to find it funny, even forcing myself to laugh on occasion. However the sad truth is that when you have to fool yourself into thinking you’re enjoying something, no amount of positive thinking is going to make it any better.

I think a lot of it was the performance of Steve Coogan. I like Coogan, I think he’s funny for the most part, but not here. He’s a little too over the top and it rarely works well for the movie. It’s just a bit on the shrill side. Catherine Keener plays a similar character to a lot of the ones she plays. I’m not even sure what the hell David Arquette was doing in this movie. I’m pretty sure he only spoke 3 times and each time contained one full sentence. His purpose confuses me. Elizabeth Shue did have some funny moments and I would put as the highlight of the cast for sure.

Another problem I had with this movie is that it contains a lot of the dreaded “pause for laughter” moments. I’m sure you know them. When after a joke the scene lingers on for a few seconds, presumably to give the audience time to start laughing before moving on. More often that not these moments are just brutal to watch. It’s something the Epic Movie series of crap contains a lot of. It makes the movie come off as a little arrogant too. Basically, fuck these moments. Don’t assume you’re funnier than you are.

I still can’t completely hate this movie though because the last 20 minutes or so does contain some funny moments. The play itself is funny, with the songs of course being a highlight. It’s too bad the buildup towards the finale takes too long because there really is some good stuff to be found in the last act.

The movie was a definite disappointment, especially compared with some of the great comedies this year has given us. It’s not awful but I think the last part really helped take the memories away from the first hour of the movie. That’s why I can give it the score I am giving it.

**/5