Hamlet 2: Critic Reviews

A high school musical that would make John Waters proud.

It all adds up to the kind of bad family entertainment likely to raise only a few eyebrows.

Its sharply funny moments make its lack of consistency all the more evident. The movie ends up feeling like a collection of moments, rather than a coherent quirky comedy.

[A] dazzling little comedy.

Coogan will do anything for a laugh, and given how little he has to work with, he must.

Fortunately, Coogan remains impressively unafraid of humiliation, pushing every joke just far enough to keep us watching. But he deserves more.

Not since Death of a Salesman has failure been quite so entertaining.

The more self-righteous it gets -- the more pious it is about offending people -- the less it works as a theatrical parody.

Why so vulgar?

Coogan's mopiness is oddly riveting.

The movie is an ideal showcase for the talents of Coogan.

Steve Coogan is the whole show in Hamlet 2, and while director and co-writer Andrew Fleming is strictly rudimentary in terms of technique and style, his British star pockets every available laugh plus a few unavailable ones.

[Coogan's] screen persona is vain, dim, angry, and deeply miserable, and his handful of scenes here with a smilingly harsh Catherine Keener are little masterpieces of comic sadomasochism.

In Andrew Fleming's Hamlet 2, the laughs are wan and intermittent. There's something rotten in the state of Arizona.

Fleming saves most of his energy for the blowout final production numbers, which play like demented outtakes from High School Musical.

Boy, is it stupid. Boy, is it funny.

For a film like Hamlet 2 to work -- even the title is hilariously ridiculous -- it has to sell the absurdity completely. It does.

Hit-and-miss in terms of verbal wit and individual gags. But package moves along quickly, and overall concept remains amusing even when there's a dud moment or three.

I am not fond of listening to characters scream unfunny lines meant to send up the blandness of everyday people.

Dead Poets Society, Dangerous Minds, Mr. Holland's Opus, all 'great' movies about 'great' teachers inspiring their students to achieve great things -- all movies referenced lovingly by Steve Coogan's 'inspiring' teacher in Hamlet 2.

If promotional hype of Falstaffian proportions has you convinced that Hamlet 2 is a Shakespearean romp or a musical involving a rocking sexy deity, some elucidation is in order.

Let's just say that, when the parody looks indistinguishable from the parodied, something's gone awry.

No matter how many jokes you pack around it, arrested development doesn't make for a very compelling dramatic arc.

Despite the richness of the premise for comic invention, however, Hamlet 2 remains a rather mediocre experience, offering sporadic laughs but never achieving the level of consistent humor necessary to make this memorable.

An erratic, freewheeling satire of Middle American mores.