Hamlet 2

Hamlet 2 – 2008, Andrew Fleming

Hamlet 2 is a parody of a comedy. At least I hope it is. It takes many aspects of contemporary comedies and uses them to show how formulaic a lot of ‘independent’ comedy has become.

H2 is set in a small town in America, this in itself is supposed to be funny somehow). Kooky yet sincere characters live in a small community. They are eccentric but if they appear unbelievable, that doesn’t matter so long as everybody else behaves normally around them. The villain of the film is a bully who doesn’t understand the crazy main characters and tolerates them the least. Sound familiar?

Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Juno (2007, were all very successful. Napoleon is overrated but was very well received at the time because it was so original. Little Miss Sunshine hit the independent comedy nail right on the head, following in the footsteps of Sideways (2004). Juno (which isn’t as good or as bad a people say it is) inspired a generation of teenager girls to be smart arses, better than aspiring to be a WAG I suppose. Between 2004 and 2007 the ‘delightful independent comedy film’ template was created. A template that will last forever. Sometimes film makers get it right; Broken Flowers (2005), sometimes they get it wrong; Rocket Science (2007).

Hamlet 2 gets it the most wrong of all. It’s not necessarily the formula that’s wrong; like any comedy Hamlet 2 relies upon the jokes and the performances to make it funny, all of which fall short. The sad thing about Hamlet 2 is that the lead is played by Steve Coogan. His performance is very Cooganesque, but the character is not a Steve Coogan character. And he puts on a very annoying American accent.

Stop getting Coogan wrong!

Luckily I caught this film on TV so I didn’t waste a precious LoveFilm delivery.

‘This years Napoleon Dynamite’ urrrrgh.