The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)

WARNING

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS THEN DON'T READ THE BITS WRITTEN IN RED.

OTHER THAN THIS BIT, OBVIOUSLY.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I was hooked on the Inbetweeners television series from the start. I tuned into the first episode back in 2008 expecting very little. The early TV trailers made it look like a forced, low brow comedy made to cater to E4's 'trendy youth' target audience. Thankfully I was wrong. It only took the show four minutes for force a laugh from my begrudging innards, the use of the term briefcase wanker granting me access to a slew of non stop seemingly juvenile but actually quite clever comedic one liners that would become a staple of the show during it's three season run.

The Inbetweeners never really had a bad episode, sure there are some that are funnier than others but Damon Beesley and Iain Morris's writing was so spot on for the show that it never felt like a chore to sit through. It's one of the UK's best produced comedy shows of the 2000's and deserves every bit of high praise that it receives.

That being said the story wrapped up very well at the end of the third and final season so when it came to the run up for The Inbetweeners Movie, I wasn't quite sure if it would pay off. Remembering how tragically bad Kevin And Perry Go Large was and considering how close this films plot and background was to that film I went in expecting the worst. Luckily, The Inbetweeners proved me wrong a second time.

The story is simple. Will, Simon, Jay and Neil all go on holiday to Malia, Crete in order to escape the mundanity and depressing nature of their sad pathetic little lives. Their aim, in true teen comedy fashion is to party hard, get shitfaced and have as much sex as humanly possible. Obviously, their plan is doomed from the start and one bad turn begets another, providing much amusement.

As I said, the story has been done before to varying degrees of success. On the whole the story works quite well, the genre has been well explored in the past but it doesn't feel stale here. For the films entire ninety minute running time, The Inbetweeners Movie is fun and energetic with plenty of comedy set pieces to keep the audience entertained. With that being said the plot is extremely generic and forces the film to stop dead every time it begins to pick up speed in order to further itself and the characters development. The reason for this happening is that this is a film and not a TV show and it's this factoid that winds up doing the most damage to the film.

Part of what made the TV show so fun was it's pacing and timing. The humour in The Inbetweeners show was predominantly dialogue driven with plots that lead to a climactic scene designed to cause the characters a major embarrassment. This was usually pulled off trough the shows expert writing and a brisk delivery style crafted by the actors, directors and editors. The problem with doing a motion picture is that this style will not translate. You can't keep adding layer upon layer of jokes in a lead up to a spectacular climactic moment for a full 90 minutes without the film becoming exhausting or losing steam. So in order to remedy this, writers Morris and Beesley have created a script that works like a collection of three back to back episodes with a forced generic plot that strings the entire thing together. Now I can't stress enough that the problem this film has isn't the writers fault, its the fault of how cinema works. I honestly feel that they did the best job they could have done, given the circumstances. That's not to say that they couldn't have embellished a little more in some of the shows stronger aspects in order to downplay the restrictions brought upon by the rules of cinema.

My favourite aspect of the TV show was the adults. The parents, Mr Gilbert and any other adult characters that inhabited the world of the four leads often had a major part to play in many of the shows best moments. It's their reactions to what the boys get up to and their inherent childishness that made them the perfect foils to the boys adventures. The film however, barely feature the adults, only showcasing their talents during the films opening scenes. The reason this was done, no doubt, was to allow the boys to go and adventure on their own, but personally, I think this was a mistake. If it were me, I'd have written the script so that the parents followed the boys to their holiday destination in order to check on how they were doing and what they got up to. It would have been played out in the background of the story in a way that made the boys unaware of their presence and would've allowed the film to climax with a scene where it all comes out into the open in the same manor the TV show always closed, with an outright embarrassment. Sadly however, I was forced to mourn the loss of these characters and wound up feeling that the film was lacking much of what I dug so much about the show.

On the up side the cast were, as in the TV show, outstanding. By this point Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison inhabit their characters so fully that it's become almost impossible to remember that these four teenagers don't actually exist. Will, Simon, Jay and Neil all act in ways that feel completely natural to the characters, making them fun, likeable and at times sympathised with in a way that supports the film perfectly. Between them they carried the entire film with apparent ease and turned what would have been a lacklustre cinematic experience into a memorable fun night out. It's a shame that this is the last time I'll get to see these four actors again but at least they've gone out on a high.

The direction was as good as to be expected. Ben Palmer, who directed the majority of the TV shows, recaptured the feel of the TV show and helmed this project with style. The Inbetweeners Movie looks good and plays well. If a new director, unrelated to the project had come in in order to direct the show for the big screen I'm in no doubt that it would have turned out to be a mess. The way film was done doesn't feel like a sell out affair which it so easily could have, and I'm in no doubt that this is thanks to Palmers work on the film.

My final piece of praise has to go to the written stylings of Morris and Beesley. Unavoidable plot issues aside the script was funny, had an original voice and made me laugh multiple times. The dialogue, as it always did in the TV show, feels natural and is uncannily reminiscent of how me and my friends talked when we were that age. There are plenty of gross out and cringe worthy moments to be found within The Inbetweeners Movie with the occasional intelligent, witty one liners that were sadly lost on the audience I watched the film with, but I enjoyed them and thats all that matters.

To wrap this up then I'm going to say that I enjoyed The Inbetweeners Movie on the whole. It was funny, it didn't go all Kevin and Perry and the cast were great fun. On the downside the rules of modern day cinema held the film back from becoming truly amazing, something which makes the big screen adventures of the inbetweeners a far less enjoyable piece of comedy than the TV show which spawned it.

The Inbetweeners Movie gets...

3 out of 5