Review: Hamlet 2

"Hamlet 2" caused me to feel a sentiment towards it that I've never felt towards a movie before: I felt like I had seen it all before, but I didn't see this as a bad thing in any way. The film is like a strange amalgamation of the inspirational teacher movie, the struggling artist movie and the dysfunctional class of students movie, all thrown together by the writer of "Team America: World Police", which in case you forgot is the movie that prominently featured puppets boning in every position imaginable. Based on the above sentence, you probably now have a pretty good idea of just what you're in for.

The center of "Hamlet 2" is Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a failed actor who refuses to accept failure. What makes his character so interesting is that unlike most characters in this vein (the struggling actor who refuses to admit he's not talented), Marschz is fully and completely aware that he's not all that talented. He's so stubbornly attached to his dream that his lack of talent is merely a trifle. He works at a high school for free to share his love of drama; this love is shared with two suck-up students and a class full of Latino students who are totally indifferent and only joined the class because it was the only arts elective left. His arch-enemy is a tiny boy who viciously criticizes his stage adaptations of works of art like "Erin Brockovich". At home, he's no better off. His wife (Catherine Keener) can't be near him without sarcastically criticizing his work and his inability to impregnate her.

When he is told that the drama program is being shut down, he desperately puts together "Hamlet 2", a sequel to the Shakespearean play that involves a time machine, Hillary Clinton, Einstein and Jesus. Also, lightsabers. The moment the town finds out about this, Marschz is thrown out of school, and all of a sudden Tuscon, Arizona becomes a hotbed for the free speech vs. smut debate.

While the film seems to be attempting to make a larger point about free expression, it surrounds itself in a great deal of cliches. Occasionally, it notices this, and there's a hilarious scene, such as when Marschz tells a student to punch him after watching "Dangerous Minds" and deciding to engage in tough-love teaching. More often, though, it collapses under its own weight. Coogan does the best he can with the writing, and manages to make even the most overplayed of jokes (Oh no, the fool got his hand stuck in a door!) funny. Even more so than in "Tropic Thunder", Coogan shows here the sort of devilish wit and willingness to revel in his own indignity that made him so popular abroad. Despite his performance (and that of a game Elisabeth Shue, who trashes her own borderline-forgotten career for some knowing laughs), there are too many easy jokes (the girl who keeps getting hit in the head with random objects) and random moments of after-school-special sentimentality that'd seem more at home in "Dead Poets Society" than in an R-rated comedy.

While we're on the subject, it's been a while since I've felt this about a movie, but it needs to be said: Given some of the content in play here, "Hamlet 2" actually isn't R-rated enough. When a film ends with a song-and-dance number entitled "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus", complete with the Messiah doing a moonwalk across water, the film has to keep up. It feels like the shocking final performance of "Hamlet 2", by far the funniest part of the film, is a third-act stretch to add shock value to a movie that seems like it should've had more of it building to that point. The film is more or less a screwball comedy (albeit a profane one) up until that point, and then it veers wildly into satirical territory. The problem is, when it hits this point, it's actually not offensive enough to be considered intelligent in the way that the "South Park" film is. It's just...well, it's just kind of there.

"Hamlet 2" isn't really a bad movie, but it feels like, with a few exceptions, both a mockery and a collage of movies I've seen before. This isn't a bad thing, and Coogan alone makes it worth watching, but it's nothing hugely special. Then again, maybe I'm just desensitized by the fact that the past month has bought us a work of madcap genius ("Pineapple Express") and a film that did the filthy-funny satire bit better ("Tropic Thunder"), and there was no room for a "Hamlet 2".