Hamlet 2 Review

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 08.28.2008

We know this movie can Rock some Sexy Jesus, but does it bring the funny?

Director … Andrew Fleming (The Craft)
Writer … Andrew Fleming (Dick) and Pam Brady (Team America: World Police)
Cinematographer … Alexander Gruszynski (Stone Cold)

Cast
Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder) ... Dana Marschz
Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich ) ... Brie Marschz
Joseph Julian Soria ... Octavio
Skylar Astin ... Rand Posin
Phoebe Strole ... Epiphany Sellars
Melonie Diaz ... Ivonne
Arnie Pantoja ... Vitamin J
Michael Esparza ... Chuy
Natalie Amenula ... Yolanda
Marshall Bell (Starship Troopers ) ... Principal Rocker
David Arquette (Scream ) ... Gary
Elisabeth Shue (Karate Kid ) ... Elisabeth Shue
Amy Poehler (Baby Mama ) ... Cricket Feldstein





Rated R for language including sexual references, brief nudity and some drug content.


One of the tag words for Hamlet 2 on IMDB.COM is Anti-Christianity. I would assume that was entered by someone who has not seen this movie. In fact, the type of person who chose this keyword is the exact person this movie makes fun of.

Dana Marschz (Coogan) is a high school drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona. Normally, his drama class is filled by two students, white bread girl Epiphany Sellars (Strole) and closeted boy Rand Posin (Astin). Every year the three put on horrible plays based on award winning movies. The play at the beginning of the movie is based on Erin Brockovich and gets horrible reviews by the grade school newspaper movie critic. When the next semester begins, Dana finds his class is overrun with students because all the movable classrooms of the other electives fell apart and couldn’t be reconstructed due to budget cuts. Much of the new class members consist of Hispanics and this causes tension with the two returning star pupils who are terrified of the racial integration into their world.

Hamlet 2 borrows from just about every movie that pairs a teacher with a difficult situation. What makes it work so well is it knows it is doing so and by namedropping the movies it cribs from the comedy comes easy. Dana is a drama teacher overly passionate about the class because he is a failed actor who wants to pass on his love and passion of acting to the students. He is an overdrawn caricature, but one based in reality. As a film student I had a teacher who reminds of Dana very much. When Dana is talking about Robin C. Williams (C is not even his middle initial, so I don’t understand the joke), it reminded me of my professor when she would talk about Roberto Rodriguez, rolling every R. The passion on display was scary in its familiarity.

Dana learns they are shutting down the drama program following the current semester, so he devices a plan to put on an original play instead of rehashing popular movies, trying to make it successful enough to save the program. He bands his group of misfit students together and they start working on his new masterpiece, Hamlet 2. The play supposes that Hamlet finds himself travelling through time to save the people who died in the original play because, in Dana’s mind, everyone deserves a chance at redemption. Along the way he meets Jesus, also travelling through time, and the two save the day.

By the time we get to the big production, everything has gone to hell. Dana’s wife (Keener) leaves him for their slightly retarded boarder (Arquette). He is soon also locked out of his own classroom, kicked off campus and threatened with a cease and desist letter from the school board to stop production of his play. Lucky for him, he has a group of students who are willing to help him put on the play of their lives at any cost and a lawyer from the ACLU named Cricket (Poehler), willing to represent him and ensure no one stops this production.

The earlier thought of this movie being Anti-Christian is ridiculous. There is a point in the movie during the performance of “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” where little Christian girls come down in front with their Bibles and start praying for the sinners in attendance. It is exactly what would happen in any small Midwestern town if this production were to take place. In the middle of the song and dance number (lifted straight out of Grease) one of the girls stops praying and looks at her friends. She has an epiphany. “Wait,” she says, “I get it. Jesus is kicking the devil’s butt!” A woman behind her responds, “It’s still disrespectful!” to which someone tells her to shut up.

That’s my response as well. Hamlet 2 is one of the most entertaining, funny and original movies I have seen in a very long time. The acting is all very good, which surprises me for such a young cast. You can see moments in the movie that ape such films as Dangerous Minds (“with the lovely Michelle Pfeifer”) and Dead Poets Society. However, it doesn’t repeat the plot lines verbatim; instead adding its own touches to try to ground the movie into its own reality. The dangerous Latino boy that stands up to Dana at the start turns out to be a 3.8 GPA student from a well-to-do family on a track for Brown University. Another fun performance is from an actor I enjoyed a great deal in last year’s Sydney White named Arnie Pantoja. In Sydney White, he played a simple minded Tiger Scout who couldn’t tie a knot. In Hamlet 2, he plays a simple minded student (yet surprisingly resilient audio/video whiz) who probably has consumed one too many drugs through his life. The kid is a brilliant actor.

What makes the movie great lies squarely on the shoulders of the very talented Steve Coogan. He loses himself in a role that could have been a ridiculous caricature and instead became a ridiculous, and hilarious, performance. A running joke throughout the movie involves his sperm tests as he and his wife try to conceive. Catherine Keener is wonderful in her role as his alcoholic, former drug dealing wife, hating every minute of their live in Tucson. Dana is a man who wants to create something so strong and powerful, he finds himself slowly growing more insane than he already is as the movie progresses.

I can’t say for sure, but I would assume one of the writers hails from Tucson, Arizona. When the movie starts, a voice over asks where dreams go to die, and the camera ends up on the Welcome to Tucson sign. At the end of the movie, Dana looks at his students and tells them there is nowhere to go from here but up because anywhere they go is better than Tucson, Arizona. It is one of many running gags throughout the movie including roller skating, racial integration, cafeteria lunch ladies, a volleyball team, shooting blanks and the Tucson Gay Men’s Choir.

I save the best running gag for last. Elisabeth Shue. Yes, the same Elisabeth Shue who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Leaving Las Vegas. In the movie Shue plays herself, retired from acting and now working as a nurse. She mentions how much she hates Hollywood and the shit that goes on there and the only thing she misses is making out with her co-stars in movies. “It’s the only bad thing about being a nurse. You can’t make out with your patients.” Shue is a recurring character throughout the movie and delivers many of the film’s best lines. Her reaction during the stage play of Hamlet 2 is priceless.

The 411: Hamlet 2 is the best comedy of the year. Despite its familiar pretense, it is a highly original film with great performances by everyone involved. Steve Coogan is brilliant in his portrayal as a hyper-active drama teacher and helps carry this movie to heights the script could only hope to reach without him. The songs are catchy and the last number, Rock Me Sexy Jesus, will remain in your head long after leaving the theater. It’s a great rated R comedy that pulls no punches and hits more jokes than it misses. In a year with big budget comedies like The Love Guru and Semi-Pro falling short, it is refreshing to see a smaller movie show up and knock it out of the ballpark.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]