Rating: 6/10
Running Time: 97 minutes
US Certificate: R UK Certificate: 18
It’s always hit and miss with movie adaptations of popular TV comedies as it proves hard to come up with a balanced mix of familiarity and originality. It was easy to see this happening with The Inbetweeners Movie especially as the last series of the award-winning British TV show was a bit of a let down.
For those twelve people who haven’t heard of it or the aliens of the future who are reading this, The Inbetweeners Movie is a big screen adaptation of the brilliantly un-PC adventures of a group of potty mouthed teenage Sixth Formers as they attempt to drink underage and struggle to get laid. It’s basically the school life of any one unfortunate not to be the cool kids at school or the bully-fodder special cases – the inbetweeners. The movie follows the four teenagers – Simon (Thomas), Will (Bird), Jay (Buckley) and Neil (Harrisson)- as they jet off to Greece for a post-Sixth form lads week away in search of oceans of clunge and not much else. The early optimism soons begins to waiver as the boys manage to screw things up repeatedly.
A big problem with The Inbetweeners Movie is the tunnel vision of the story. Whereas, the series concentrates on a wide range of teenage experiences from sex to underage drinking and from dealing with the parents to the trials and tribulations of school, the movie is obsessed almost solely by the pursuit of sex therefore making it way too one-dimensional. Secondly, a huge chunk of the action is given over to excrutiating feck-up Simon who is great at messing things up in cringingly original ways, but who is nowhere near as funny as rude and crude Jay or the David Mitchell-in-the-body-of-a-teenager Will. More time needed to be given over to the others to give the film more variety. Also, surely they could have got Big John is a pair of speedos and a sombrero?
Having said all that, Ben Palmer’s big screen adaptation is still pretty funny. There is still the likeable chemisty, slapstick and crude and hugely funny one-liners so the entertainment factor is still there in spades. Yes, it’s not Shakespeare but, in it’s own way, the Inbetweeners still retains a lot of the magic that has won it legions of fans.
It's Got: Much of the rude, crude, funny humour that made the TV show a hit.
It Needs: More variety and story progression and more even use of the characters
Summary
Entertaining and funny if not amazingly clungetastic.