THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE Review - Knee Deep in Clunge In Crete

rating: 2.5

Even when a television show as celebrated and long-standing as The Simpsons struggled to justify its existence beyond the bite-sized confines of a slot on a TV channel (fun an outing though it was), what chance did The Inbetweeners Movie ever really have? The Inbetweeners became a runaway hit in its brief, 18-episode run, but on the big screen, the challenge to measure up is much more fierce, for a distended version of 'ol faithful doesn't really cut it. Following gleefully in the tradition of game-upping by taking advantage of the opportunity to be more graphic than its TV counterpart, this is otherwise little more than a 90-minute episode which just about makes a passing attempt at providing fans with closure. We reconvene with the lads - Will (Simon Bird), Jay (James Buckley), Neil (Blake Harrison) and Simon (Joe Thomas) - on their last day of college. As Simon is surprise-dumped by the girl he has been chasing for the entire run of the series, Carly, the collective newfound freedom of the group prompts them to up sticks to Greece for a debauched lads' holiday. While for the other three it's all about booze and sex ad literal nauseum, for Simon it's about winning Carly back once he realises she is also in town. Once they chance upon a group of like-minded British girls nearby, though, things change considerably, and they come to wonder if they might all have had their fortunes turn around. While advantage has been taken of the 15-rating and the generally more permitting moral guidelines of cinematic certification, the writers of The Inbetweeners Movie haven't really in turn exploited the chance to further develop these characters, who became archetypes after three seasons but have become by the end of this film outright cliches. The full-frontal male nudity and graphically crude humour grants a few shock laughs, but they only account for part of what this beefed-out treatment should have allowed. Generally speaking, the humour is sporadic and gags are telegraphed too far in advance, resulting in a tiresome pantomime-like quality for most of the elaborate (and more often than not, visual) jokes. The voiceover narration also by this point feels passe and needless; do these characters and these situations not stand alone on their own merits by now? Uneven though the script is, the performances are at least solidly consistent across the board. The boys attack the material with the laddish gusto which made the show so popular in the first place, and don't seem to have outgrown it one bit. Buckley, as Jay, is the outrageous stand-out as is to be expected, but all four get their own moments. It's just a shame that while the film feels in many respects like a Hangover-esque treatise on male bonding, it never really goes the full measure. The characters are too hollow and ultimately too mean-spirited for the most part for the affectionate moments to resolutely hold true. The writers at least seem to know this on some level, though, because the film ends abruptly without any grand reflection or much apparent growth. Only Jay can really be said to have learned much at all, and he's probably the most likeable character for it. Still, it's hard not to take it easy on pretty much our only homegrown production which can match our transatlantic friends in the crude comedy stakes. It's a refreshing rebuke to the countless Brit period dramas and gangster pics we're known for, but for the closure it seems to provide, it should be funnier and develop its characters more. Big fans will probably still enjoy it enough though. The Inbetweeners Movie is out now in the UK.