"Hamlet 2" was so smothered in buzz at this year's Sundance Film Festival that Focus Features apparently fought to pay $10 zillion dollars to acquire it. Now that the picture's being ushered out into the ticket-buying world, however, those wHO see it may wonderment what's beingness put in the thumb foods up in Park City.
The motion-picture show certainly sounds promising. Steve Coogan plays Dana Marschz, a failed actor with an undying love for the dramatic art. Having abased himself in late-night TV commercials for power juicers and herpes virus medications, Dana has now followed his muse to Tucson, Arizona, where he runs the drama department at a local high school. The student productions he stages, however � musical adaptations of "Erin Brockovich" and "Mississippi Burning" � discover no favor with the school circuit card, which is in a budget-cutting mood and has decided to shut him down. Upon receiving this news, Dana's wife, Brie (Catherine Keener), decides she's just some had it. She and her hapless spouse are already so broke that they've had to take in a boarder, a near-mute case-by-case named Gary (David Arquette). Now this.
But Dana is undeterred. Defiantly, he announces one last production: a sequel to "Hamlet" � a play at the end of which, as you whitethorn recall, all the independent characters ar dead. To finesse this problem, Dana's "Hamlet 2" will feature film a time machine, which will bring all those dead characters back, along with Albert Einstein, Jesus and, for some cause, the as-yet-unexpired Dick Cheney. Motorcycles besides figure in the transactions. Several setbacks intervene, merely in the end, as you'd require, the picture goes on.
Is there anyone who doesn't love Steve Coogan � for his incomparable "Alan Partridge" BBC series, his flamboyant indie-music mogul in "24 Hour Party People," his general satirical brilliance? Here, though, director Andrew Fleming seems to have turned Coogan a small too escaped, indulging him in frantic declamation and hit-and-miss slapstick. Catherine Keener � is there anyone who doesn't love her, too? � is as sharp and endearing as ever, simply there's way too little of her. On the other hand, a rum, self-deprecating coming into court by Elisabeth Shue, playacting herself, adds an element of unearthly invention that the picture show could suffer used more of. (The idea is that Shue has step down showbiz to become a nurse in a local fertility clinic; when Dana persuades her to apply an address to his theater class, the number 1 question she takes is, "Who are you?")
The moving-picture show suffers from its spotty humor and low-budget languor. Or perchance it's just that the bulk of the impression seems asthenic in comparison to its rousing conclusion � the glorious operation of "Hamlet 2." This is staged with a professionalism that's entirely laughable, of course � what cash-strapped senior high school drama department could afford the elaborate staging and whizbang effects on display hither? But Ralph Sall's songs are riotously beltable ("Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" could be more than simply a YouTube hit), and the whole extravaganza is more entertaining than some Broadway musicals I've actually sat through.
It's too bad that so little of what precedes the movie's dynamite wrap up is worthy of it. Well, with the exception of the gay men's chorus that gives forth with an oddly moving rendition of "Maniac." Now that's entertainment.
Check out everything we've got on "Hamlet 2."
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Don't miss Kurt Loder's reviews of "The House Bunny," "The Rocker" and "Death Race," likewise new in theaters this week.
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