Web-Exclusive Review: Hamlet 2
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 18-Aug-08 @ 12:15 PM
COMEDYHamlet 2 (FOCUS FEATURES) STARS > Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler, Elisabeth Shue, Joseph Julian Soria, Melonie Diaz, David Arquette, Skylar Astin, Phoebe Strole DIRECTOR > Andrew Fleming RATING > 3/5 OPENS > August 27 Played to a perfectly pathetic tee by English comedy superstar Steve Coogan, drama teacher Dana Marschz (don't bother--it's intentionally unpronounceable) is a former alcoholic, a current rollerblader ('cause of the DUI and all), and a failed actor whose finest contribution to the craft is a commercial for herpes cream. His class is usually occupied by just two students-the closeted, nervous Rand (Astin) and the bigoted, uptight Epiphany (Strole)-who perform terrible stage adaptations of Hollywood comfort-food like Erin Brockovich and Dead Poets Society, all of which are righteously skewered by the school's diminutive ninth-grade film critic. This semester, Marschz and his whitebread protégés are joined by a dozen or so Latino students (led by Soria and Diaz) who'd rather be in shop class or pottery, both of which have been dropped from the curriculum. Meanwhile, Marschz is a clueless husband to his former pot-dealer wife (the always excellent Keener), who's busy being impregnated by the couple's dim-witted roommate, Gary (a nearly-mute Arquette). The worst part is that all of these people live in Tucson, Arizona. The plot is set in motion when the school principal informs Marschz that drama will be going the way of shop and pottery next semester. So Marschz hatches a plan to save his livelihood by staging a production of his own creation: A schlocky, potentially blasphemous sequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, starring Marschz himself as "Sexy Jesus." (Naturally, the fact that everyone dies at the end of the original Hamlet is not a deterrent.) What follows is a refreshingly self-aware lampoon of modern Christianity, political correctness, and censorship and its opponents (in the form of the hilarious Poehler as an ACLU lawyer). Penned by director Andrew Fleming and Team America: World Police writer/former South Park producer Pam Brady, the script occasionally veers into slapstick goofiness, but let's face it: The movie--and the play within it--is called Hamlet 2. What's not goofy about that? --J. Bennett |
