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58
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54
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53
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49
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45
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43
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43
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43
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39
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37
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36
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36
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36
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35
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35
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35
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34
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31
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28
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27
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26
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19
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|
Hamlet 2
Focus Features (Universal)
 |
|
MPAA RATING: R for language including sexual references, brief nudity and some drug content
Starring
Steve Coogan,
Catherine Keener,
Amy Poehler,
David Arquette,
Elisabeth Shue,
and
Melonie Diaz
Dana Marschz--the last name is pronounced...oh, any attempt is close enough, really--is a failed actor-turned-high school drama teacher. Shortchanged in the talent department, Dana still harbors ambitions and passions. At Tucson, AZ's West Mesa High School, Dana sees himself as an inspirational teacher, but when his department is targeted for closure, Dana must reach deep into himself for creativity. After much perspiration, he conceives a sequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet - a musical-theater extravaganza that will disdain both political correctness and dramatic credibility. With rehearsals underway, objections from school officials and the community are soon raised, but Dana will not be denied his freedom of artistic expression. After all, "to thine own self be true." Dana gets unexpected support from ACLU attorney Cricket Feldstein and his favorite actress, Elisabeth Shue. Above all else, he fervently believes that his opus must be staged, and nothing can break his optimistic spirit. (Focus Features)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Pam Brady
Andrew Fleming
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Andrew Fleming
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: August 22, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
92 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Funny excuses an awful lot, and at its best, Hamlet 2 is nothing short of hilarious.

83
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
As a movie, Hamlet 2 is lively, energetically daft, and very, very scrappy -- a broader, more loony-tunes knockoff of "Waiting for Guffman."

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Occasionally sloppy, with a finale so abrupt and incoherent that it feels like something is missing. But it's also pleasantly odd and truly funny, and it builds in strength as it goes along.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Like its low-key star, Hamlet 2 is more likely to elicit quiet chuckles than raucous laughter.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
It's Coogan's breakthrough star performance that holds it all together. He's sensational.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie is an ideal showcase for the talents of Coogan.

70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Coogan's screen persona is vain, dim, angry, and deeply miserable, and his handful of scenes here with a smilingly harsh Catherine Keener are little masterpieces of comic sadomasochism.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Arquette wander in and out of frame, but like everyone else in this film, they're eclipsed by Coogan's gloriously unhinged performance, which has the lunatic, semi-meta tone of a parody within a parody.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
A frequently amusing and consistently outrageous but ultimately tiresome farce.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Elisabeth Shue has a strange role as a version of herself who has given up acting for nursing.

63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The film, which really is sloppy, slips around in terms of tone and goes every which way.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
A rather mediocre experience, offering sporadic laughs but never achieving the level of consistent humor necessary to make this memorable.

60
The Hollywood Reporter
Duane Byrge
Attaining somewhat of a bad parody of a comedy, screenwriters Andrew Fleming and Pam Brady have slapped together a string of gags in a hit-and-miss dither. Some of it is quite brainy.

60
Wall Street Journal
Joanne Kaufman
Mostly, though, there's the endlessly resourceful, endlessly inventive, bedazzling Mr. Coogan. Hamlet Schmamlet. Not since "Death of a Salesman" has failure been quite so entertaining.

58
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Not infrequently the movie is as mediocre as its target. The great Steve Coogan movie has yet to be made.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
In the new comedy Hamlet 2, Coogan comes perilously close to wearing out his welcome. It's actually a pretty fascinating sight.

50
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
There's a lot of potential here, and a sharper script might have made all the difference.

50
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Coogan's mopiness is oddly riveting.

50
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
It all adds up to the kind of bad family entertainment likely to raise only a few eyebrows.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Let's just say that, when the parody looks indistinguishable from the parodied, something's gone awry.

50
Variety
Dennis Harvey
Amusing but unevenly inspired tale of a deluded high school drama teacher's attempt to stage a career-saving extravaganza has some laughs, to be sure.

50
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Not nearly as uproarious as it should be.

50
Time
Richard Corliss
Hamlet 2 is as needy as its hero -- because it wants not to be probing or profound or even witty but, above all else, to be loved.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Only in its aggressively imaginative profanity is the film consistent.

50
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
It's an unhinged, off-the-wall comedy that will try anything once, an uneven film in which the hits are so dead-on that the misses don't seem to matter.

40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
So wearying that it makes you feel duped for being open to it in the first place. Hamlet 2 works so hard at being entertaining, in that quirky, Indie 101 sense, that it just grinds you down.

25
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Much like the play within it, Hamlet 2 is lousy. The main difference is that the play is SUPPOSED to be awful. The movie about the play is supposed to be funny.

12
New York Post
Kyle Smith
The laughs begin with the excellent title Hamlet 2 - and they end there.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
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