"Hamlet 2" - spoiler movie review

"Tropic Thunder" and "Hamlet 2" - how perfect a movie summer has it been that both movies came out within weeks of each other?

"Hamlet 2" has been the other movie that I've been dying to see based on the trailer. "Tropic Thunder" was irreverent to a large degree, but I think "Hamlet 2" was even more so. With how much I loved "Tropic Thunder", I was a little concerned about whether or not I would be let down with "Hamlet 2". The concern was completely without basis. Oh, and same advice here - LEAVE THE KIDS AT HOME, and if you're easily offended, stay away from this film.

Tucson is the armpit of the United States and is a hellhole of a place to live. That's the message of this movie. OK, it's really only *one* of the messages of this movie, but it was still a pretty funny one. I've actually been to Tucson a couple of times, when I was a little kid - and based on those visits, I'd pretty much agree with the opinion posited in this movie. The husband was wondering how the Tucson tourism board would feel about this movie.

"Hamlet 2" tells the story of Dana Marschz, a small-time actor with a weirdly-pronounced last name who was failing at finding any good parts so then decided to become a teacher and ended up as the drama teacher at a high school in Tucson. He has a penchant for doing adaptations of big-screen movies, productions which are skewered by the critics - ok, we find out that it's really just one critic who is the bane of Dana's existence, and it's the wise-beyond-his-years critic on the high school student paper. Dana has two devoted drama geek students, Rand and Epiphany, but his class gets much more interesting when a bunch of latino students end up taking his class because all of the other good classes have been cancelled, and none of them have any interest or knowledge about drama. Dana references inspirational teacher movies like "Dead Poets Society" and "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Dangerous Minds" (I was actually surprised he didn't mention "Stand and Deliver", but maybe that was just too obvious.), but the references completely make no impression on his new students. Dana gets even worse news when he finds out that the drama program has been cancelled and this will be his last year. But in true "let's put on a show" fashion, he decides to put on a spectacular last-ditch effort to draw attention to the drama program, and he rallies his students around an original musical that he's written - "Hamlet 2". His wife incredulously points out to him that everyone died at the end of "Hamlet", so how was he going to get around that? Oh, he has a device - a time machine that Jesus uses to bring Hamlet back so that Hamlet can prevent the tragedies - his mother Gertrude's poisoning and his love Ophelia's drowning - from happening. There's also a father/son problematic relationship that both Jesus and Hamlet have to deal with, not to mention Dana himself. Production of the play goes along well until they hit a snag - teacher's pet Rand is not happy with Dana's waning attention or his own lessened part in the play, so he alerts the school principal to exactly what the play is about, and the school forbids him to put on such an offensive play. Adding insult to injury, Dana also finds out that his wife has fallen in love with and is moving to San Diego with their boarder - oh, and the baby that she's pregnant with that they'd been trying so hard for? Yeah, not so much Dana's. Dana is ready to give up on everything, but his students rally behind him, and we get to see the amazing production of "Hamlet 2".

I was trying to figure out if I laughed more at this movie or at "Tropic Thunder", and I couldn't really decide, but I do know that there are parts of this movie that I missed because I or the audience was laughing loud enough to drown out the sound of the movie.

There are so many moments in this film that are just comic brilliance, whether in the writing or the delivery. The various stories that they weave are interesting, and while you pretty much know where the story is going to end up, the journey there is just a riot.

Other than Steve Coogan and irreverent topics (and lots of cursing), this film shares a lot of similar moments with "Tropic Thunder". "Tropic Thunder" opened with three fake movie trailers, and this film opened with three fake commercials/TV clips. I *loved* the manufactured clip from "Xena: Warrior Princess"! "Tropic Thunder" had a sequence about someone's use of the term "you people", so I busted up when Epiphany used the same "you people" when commenting on one of the new student's acting. And, Steve Coogan refers to himself as Jesus in "Tropic Thunder", but he actually plays Jesus in this film!

Minor bits and pieces I just wanted to mention:

What the heck was up with Dana's printer? Who even uses that kind of dot-matrix printer with the holed paper on the sides that you can tear off? Wow, talk about a throwback!

I really want to know what Snoopy did during the first ten minutes of the show.

I loved the Gay Men's Choir of Tucson (which doesn't actually exist under that name, but there is actually a gay men's chorus located in Tucson), and I loved their rendition of "Maniac" from "Flashdance". There seemed to be a lot of references to 80s things, like with "The Karate Kid". Hmmm, maybe that's part of why I liked this movie, because the 80s were my time.

Yolanda was Kenny!

I loved that the security detail for the production was going to be the school football team and some gang friends of the students in the show. I'd love for there to be people to come in and physically haul away someone who makes stupid and too many comments during a show.


And as with "Tropic Thunder", part of what made this movie was the superb ensemble acting.

Steve Coogan was just brilliant in this film, showing so many different assets of his character, and showing even more by way of nudity. His butt scenes were just too funny, and I was so shocked when he had his first "nude" scene that I didn't notice if he was actually completely au naturel when he did the high kick. As far as I could tell, though, they never had a full frontal shot of him, at least one that showed anything, even in the scene when he was found bent over the couch. As he was being taken away by the police officers, the bottom of his shirt was strategically placed. And he even got to play Albert Einstein and Jesus!





Catherine Keener was good as Brie, Dana's supportive-in-the-beginning wife. I loved the dinner scene when she was drinking that humongous margarita, and I was laughing when she was weirdly licking the salt off the rim.

Joseph Julian Soria was spectacular as Octavio aka Heywood, and he's definitely someone to keep an eye on. I loved the twist when you got to meet Octavio's parents!

Skylar Astin is terrific as Rand, though I hope he got combat pay for having to wear all those sweater vests! This is his first big-screen appearance, but he looks so familiar to me, so I'm not sure why that is. He was in the Broadway hit musical "Spring Awakenings", which I haven't seen, but maybe I've just seen enough publicity on that and that's where I'm remembering him from.

Phoebe Strole was good as Epiphany, and I was just laughing when she finally started to talk "street", especially since she'd been previously intimidated by "ethnics". Interestingly, she was also in "Spring Awakenings", so while I wondered during the film whether they did their own singing in this film, I guess that question has been answered.

I kept looking at Gary, Dana's and Brie's border, and I knew he looked like someone I recognized, but I couldn't place him. It was David Arquette! And he only has a couple of lines, but he was still funny.

Elisabeth Shue was just too funny in this film. She supposedly got tired of acting and became a nurse in Tucson (at the Prickly Pear Fertility Clinic - I laughed at the name of the clinic), though they apparently don't pay her much, because she seems to go everywhere in her nurse's uniform, and she even keeps her badge on display.

Amy Poehler was terrific as Cricket Feldstein, the ACLU lawyer (yes, I thought it was hysterical when Dana thought the ACLU was a talent agency like CAA) who's not afraid to flaunt her husband's Jewish heritage.

And then, of course, there was the uncredited narrator. As I listened, I was trying to figure out who it was. It sounded to me like Jeremy Irons, even though I'm not usually very good at figuring out who a particular voice is. The husband thought it might be Christopher Lee. And then there was the reference at the end of the movie when Dana mentions Jeremy Irons, and Steve Coogan does a spot-on impersonation of him. That cemented it - the narrator must have been Jeremy Irons, though I was surprised he wasn't credited, but sometimes, they request that. So I looked around at a bunch of reviews, and they all mentioned Jeremy Irons in an uncredited role. And then I found this article with director Andrew Fleming who says that it was Steve Coogan, "doing his best Jeremy Irons with maybe a little Ian McKellen thrown in". Wow! It was awesome when I thought it actually was Jeremy Irons, but it's just as awesome that it was Steve doing Jeremy Irons!

And then there were the songs. "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" was just awesome, and I loved the "Grease" feel of the production, with the three girls starting off on the daybed, and the cars in the back and the costuming and the dance moves.





I also loved the version of Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" that was sung in the show, supposed by the gay men's choir.

I really want the soundtrack to this film, so I was disappointed to discover that they haven't released one. Individual songs and the soundtrack are only available as downloads through iTunes. And the songs supposedly sung by the gay men's choir are credited to "The Ralph Sall Experience". Ralph Sall is, among other things, president of Bulletproof Entertainment and the writer of the original music for this film. I would really prefer to have an actual CD rather than just buying the downloads, so I've asked to see if they have plans to release a CD. If not, I guess I'll just have to buy the downloads. August 31, 2008, 11:10 am - edited to add: I got an email response from Ralph Sall that the soundtrack will be released on CD on September 30, so that makes me one happy camper!


I think I did find one error in the movie. When the school decides that they won't allow the show to be put on, there's a short scene that shows a stack of copies of the school paper being taken by various people, and then the camera zooms in to show that it's a column by the student critic about the show being rejected. It's only on screen for a few seconds before you cut to the kids reading the article out loud, and the person reading says something like "what is it about this play" that the school is afraid of. I could swear that when they showed the actual paper, it had "about" printed twice, one right after the other. I'm going to have to wait for the DVD to be able to confirm or correct that observation.

I absolutely loved this movie and would highly recommend it, but there aren't apparently enough of the similarly-twisted people in the world, as the film isn't doing very well at the box office. Too bad - people don't know what they're missing out on.

Here's a really good interview with Steve Coogan about the movie.

Here's a terrific review of the film from when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.