The Inbetweeners 2

The Boys Are Back

Directors: Damon Beesley, Iain Morris

Release Date: 2014

Rating: 15

Running Time: 95 mins

Genre: Comedy

Actors: Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas

"You know why they call it down under? Cause that's where your face spends most of the time"

No idea of how to be cool, talk to girls or what they want to do in life, sounds like something any teenage boy can relate to, just add constant embarrassment, rejection and downright clueless behaviour to that and you've got the inbetweeners. More outrageous than ever, the boys are back and this time heading on "A mental gap year to Australia" and it's looking like this time it might actually go well for them...of course it won't, these boys have no idea what they're doing and landing them on the other side of the world,  the writers have made for a bigger catastrophe than ever before.

Having left sixth form and been on a lads holiday to Malia where each of the boys managed to strengthen their friendship, find love and maybe even become men, you'd think the writers would leave the poor guys alone and let them get on with their lives. But of course, them being the inbetweeners, this could never happen. Having almost finished their first year at uni, Will, Simon and Neil still haven't really grasped how to fit in with other people and maybe they would've in fact been better off staying together. So when Jay messages them explaining how he's got over his relationship with his ex and is settling into a life as a DJ in Australia with pick of the women when he wants, the other three want to get in on this luxury life and head down under, only to find Jay may not have been completely honest.

As you can probably guess, it follows a typical inbetweeners narrative, with Will thinking he knows best when actually has no idea, Simon constantly having girl problems, Jay covering up any truth to his life what so ever, and Neil. Though the film was entertaining and had it's moments, I just feel that it hasn't been able to match the TV series or even the last film and I think it may be because I felt like I wasn't seeing anything new, but rather just the previous antics but in Australia. The biggest problem was that it all just felt a bit rushed, and with a film there's the luxury of not having to cram it all into 20 minutes like the series. Perhaps if it slowed down a bit and it wasn't filled with just travelling then perhaps the story could've developed and delivered slightly better, but all the same it managed to be enjoyable.

I'd like to think this isn't the end for the inbetweeners, the cast has got almost ten years older than their characters now the writers could actually make the story jump ahead a few years rather than only a few months each time. I guess the possibilities are endless, but I hope the standard of comedy doesn't continue to dip and they can find the sort of humour energy that was there when they first started.

All in all, it was good, but just lacked that flare.

6/10