Attention parents: this is not to be confused with "High School Musical"...
There's a moment near the end of Hamlet 2 when Elizabeth Shue (in a terrific "return" to the screen) is sitting in an audience watching the stage production of "Hamlet 2". She's laughing out loud and clapping while the people around her are simply staring in baffled amusement, as if their brains are working overtime trying to pay attention to the musical while also figuring out why she's laughing so much more than them. The scenario is a pretty accurate depiction of my time in the theater watching Hamlet 2. Boisterous laughing would explode from different corners of the theater at different times, and all I could is nervously smile and wonder why I was missing so many of the jokes.
Writer/Director Andrew Fleming (Dick, Nancy Drew) infuses enough easy comedy in his story of a washed-up actor turned high school drama teacher to make Hamlet 2 a light summer flick, but it never quite reaches the level of hilarity that you could rightfully expect from its cast, which includes Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder), Catherine Keener (Into the Wild), Amy Poehler ("SNL", Baby Mama), Shue, and Melonie Diaz (Be Kind Rewind), who seems to be challenging Ellen Page for the number of high school-age characters she can play in consecutive movies.
The most glaring problem in Hamlet 2 is that the entire weight of the comedy is on the shoulders of Coogan, and it's a load that he can't sustain on his own for 92 minutes. The supporting cast is simply there to receive his jokes (most of which are immature and inane), and none of them offer much on their own. Compare this with the rich characters in something like Waiting for Guffman (which could have produced multiple spin-offs), and you have an idea of how one-dimensional Hamlet 2 is. Moreover, its efforts at poking fun at high school drama programs, Dangerous Minds, and even Elizabeth Shue's career aren't as clever as they should be. In fact, two of the funniest jokes happen to come at the expense of the city of Tucson, AZ, simply because they are two of the jokes that we don't see coming a mile away.
If there is a highlight aside from Coogan's performance, it's the climactic performance of the musical's outrageous showstopper "Rock Me Sexy Jesus," which, while irreverent, is not as outwardly offensive as it may seem. Ironically, had we seen more of the actual stage production of "Hamlet 2", it may have made for a better movie.
This Underrated Movie of the Month (MOTM) is likely to stir some controversy. Let me first say that the original Back to the Future is better than both of if its sequels, and deserves its status as a contemporary classic.
Released in 1989, four years after its prequel, Back to the Future Part II was brilliantly written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, who did both for all three in the trilogy. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd once again play Marty McFly and Doc Brown, respectively, but Elizabeth Shue is Jennifer Parker in this sequel (and in Part III). The original Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells), by the way, did not act again until 1996 after having to care for her ill mother. Anyway, Back to the Future Part II picks up where the original left off - "Where we're going, we don't need roads!" Great teaser.
Probably because I was young, and definitely because I saw it in the theater, Back to the Future was a lot of fun to watch. Turns out though, I still smile and put down the remote when I come across it on TV. Marty McFly and Doc Emmett Brown are a great on-screen duo, and play off each other perfectly. Biff Tannen is one of the most despicable characters ever, but you just can't wait to see what's going to happen to him next. That guy, Thomas F. Wilson, did a great job in all three movies - and then became a successful TV actor. And Lea Thompson of course never received enough credit for her ageless acting as Lorraine Baines McFly.
Aside from the acting, Back to the Future II is really well-written, and it's a crying shame that Robert Zemeckis never really wrote anything else. All of the complex plot pieces fall into place, and we're presented with a future that is amusing to fantasize about. It's shocking, and funny, to think that in 1989 we were still seriously dreaming about flying cars, hoverboards, hydrowave pizzas and the Cubs winning the World Series by 2015. That's...in a few years. Still, the imaginative details were awesome, despite the product tie-ins for Nike, Pepsi, and USA Today. Oh, and the frightening bizarro future, or past I guess it would be, or...whatever, the Hill Valley that is lorded over by evil Biff is a great addition to the story.
You can imagine that it would have been a lot of fun to be part of this movie - cast, crew, or catering. It was ahead of its time and a rare excellent sequel to a classic original. While Back to the Future III is entertaining enough, its kind of a weak finale and it doesn't really capture the imagination or whim of Part II, where the characters get to explore an unknown world and its wild implications. Convince me otherwise...
