Film Review: The Inbetweeners Movie

Us ‘Brits’ love to eulogize our film output, but our cinematic death knell is without a modicum of doubt the sex comedy. Play With Me, Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Fat Slags, Kevin and Perry Go Large and just about every Carry On film have continually pounded Britain’s credibility in the genre further and further into oblivion than even metaphysically possible. Worse however is the fact that we try too hard, oblivious to the fact that our overseas identity would be better off maintaining our stereotypically prudish image as opposed to our embarrassing attempts at building farce out of fornication. The further misadventures of E4 sitcom teen hellraisers Will, Jay, Neil and Simon don’t attempt to correct this imbalance, but in its favour it does raise some laughs, for the first twenty minutes.

Then it’s back to the depths of Brit-sex-com hell.

Scatological gags wear out quickly which is intensely problematic if you are hellbent on using them constantly within ninety minutes, as one of PS2’s launch titles brilliantly put it “same trick is only half the points!” By the end of the film, one last poo joke is only 1/36^th of how funny it was the first time.
The characters are thinly drawn geeks, including Will the tubby bespectacled one, Jay the horny one, Simon the dumb one who just got dumped and Neil the really dumb one. None of them are particularly distinguishable beyond their crusade for ‘tha pussay’, they and the side characters that populate the proceedings are consistently vulgar and idiotic and for most of the film there is nothing neutral to counter them until the girls show up. Naturally the objects of their lust are not only as two-dimensional as they are, but they may just be the only sympathetic characters in the whole misguided shebang and a male centric comedy like this isn’t about to consider them as anything other than inflatable dolls, sadly they are written with about as much emotional depth. The Inbetweeners themselves are comic caricatures without moderation, they behave in extremes all of the time despite the fact that we NEED moments of subtlety to appreciate the crudity.

The movie is as crude and as crass as you’d expect, but you will be surprised by how boring and repetitive the proceedings become. Characters continue to say and do overtly stupid things, once may be funny but by the time Neil has crapped in a footbath for no good reason you’re patience will have withered entirely. The worst thing about this film however is just how irrelevant it is, it has no aspirations above being as disposable and tacky as the glow sticks they dish out in nightclubs. Like Red Bull in film form; the initial kick will up your spirits, but the downward spiral into lethargic saturation and self loathing will quickly become intolerable. Avoid.