Hamlet 2

Just thinking back on the premise of Hamlet 2 makes me laugh. So why didn't I laugh very much while watching the movie itself? This is, I'm afraid, a case of a wonderful idea being combined with a somewhat unworthy execution. Co-writer and director Andrew Fleming (Nancy Drew) can't seem to find the right tone with his characters, or with the movie itself. It wants to be an off the wall romp, but the laughs are far too sporadic, and many of the gags fall flat. I found myself constantly switching views on the film while I was watching it. When it did hit upon a joke that worked, I found myself laughing in a way that only a great comedy can. But a majority of the time found me sitting there wondering why this movie wasn't working like it should.

The film centers on a struggling actor turned high school drama teacher named Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), whose main credits in the acting field include a couple commercials. Dana's life seems to be going nowhere. His wife, Brie (Catherine Keeger), is losing interest in their relationship, since he can't seem to produce a baby with her. His drama class is comprised of only two over-eager Teacher's Pets and a large group of troubled youth who could care less, and his stage productions of popular Hollywood movies like Erin Brockovich have been a flop with audiences and his sole theater critic (a young boy who barely seems to be 12 who writes for the school paper). Dana learns early on that the school is planning to cut the drama class completely from their curriculum, so he decides to go out with a bang by staging his dream project - a musical sequel to Hamlet that involves the title character traveling through time with Jesus Christ to save the lives of everyone who dies at the end of the original play. The show's controversial subject matter and central theme song, "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus", infuriate the local religious groups, and Dana is forced to hire a lawyer named Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) to keep the play alive after the school refuses to produce the show.

Hamlet 2 has a couple clever jokes that anyone who has ever worked in an amateur theater production will be able to pick up on. But the movie doesn't really want to be real, it wants to be a goofy satire on the industry...Or maybe it wants to make a statement on Hollywood's insistence on happy endings (the whole play is conceived because Dana hates the fact that everyone dies at the end of Hamlet)...Or maybe it wants to be about censorship...Or maybe it wants to be a parody of inspirational high school dramas about a teacher who reaches the lives of troubled students. The movie tries to take a swing at a number of subjects, but never quite hits a home run. That's because the screenplay by Pam Brady (Hot Rod, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) and Fleming is largely unfocused and scattered. This uncertainty carries through to almost every aspect of the film, right down to the performances. It gets to the point where the actors almost seem to be inhabiting completely different movies.

A very good example is the relationship between Steve Coogan and Catherine Keeger. Maybe it's supposed to be part of the joke, but I never once bought them as being a couple, because he frequently acts as if he hails from Planet X, and she seems far too intelligent and acidic in her wit and mind to be hanging around the goofball, or even in some form of a relationship with him. Coogan is a comic actor who I have admired in a lot of other films (he made his small role in the recent Tropic Thunder very memorable), but here, he doesn't seem to know if he should play Dana as an outcast, or as an escapee from an asylum, and seems to be trying a different approach in each scene. Therefore, the character veers wildly from being likable and offbeat, to being flat-out annoying. Likewise, his students never truly get developed into any sort of characters we can care about. The characters that did work with me don't appear often enough. Amy Poehler is funny, but comes in too late as the lawyer who attempts to save the show. And Elizabeth Shue is used very well in a caricature of herself as a faded actress who got tired of Hollywood, and moved to Tucson, Arizona to be a nurse, but isn't used nearly enough.

That's not to say all of Hamlet 2 is bad, as there are definitely some very big laughs which seem to owe a debt to writer Pam Brady's South Park days. The film opens by showing some "highlights" of Dana's career of appearing in commercials, and these are pitch-perfect parodies. I also liked the fact that the film's music montage is set to the song "Maniac" from Flashdance performed by the "Tucson Gay Men Chorus" (the choir Dana hires to perform the chorus in his musical). And of course, the climax where we finally get to see the finished product produces some laughs. I just wish the film's ad campaign hadn't given so much of it away. It's also a shame that these kind of laughs don't come often enough. This is a movie that should be alive with comic energy, and it certainly is from time to time, but not enough to recommend paying full price for it. Maybe I was expecting more, given the premise of the film and the talent behind it.

Hamlet 2 was a big hit at the festival circuit earlier this year, but I think it was one of those "you had to be there" kind of moments. The movie doesn't come alive often enough. I almost wished that the writers had tried another couple drafts, as they were definitely onto a great idea here. I wanted to love this movie. Instead, I walked out thinking about how much better it could have been if things had just been handled a little bit differently.

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