Love 'em hate 'em, there's nowhere in between

The Inbetweeners 2 (15)
Running time 96 minutes
Rating:*
As any film reviewer will know, that a movie is one of the highest grossing British films of the year (and that very fact should be applauded) should not prevent an honest, individual opinion still being offered.
So, knowing this fact about The Inbetweeners 2, and despite its huge popularity, this film for me qualifies for the title of ‘Shallowest and Greatest Waste of Space’ since the other offerings in the stable – television and cinema – first put in an appearance.
So how could a film apparently be so poor for some and yet so good for many that it attracts paying customers like flies to a jampot? The answer to the first part, I would suggest, is predictably smutty scenes, bad language, and girls portrayed as dim idiots, or sex objects. The second is, maybe inevitably, smutty scenes, bad language and Boys Behaving Badly.
An analysis of the audience profile would be interesting but, from the online reactions to it, under 25 and mostly male would be a fair interpretation.
So, what is this film all about? Jay (James Buckley) is a sex-crazed loser who has gone to Australia to track down his dumped girlfriend while pretending he has gone there for the rampant sex apparently on offer at all times. Neil (Blake Harrison) is a thick (as in short planks) loser who does what he’s told. Simon (Joe Thomas) is a decent-but-weak loser trying to get away from his psychopathic girlfriend, while Will (Simon Bird) is the clever-but-nerdy loser who doesn’t have any friends apart from those already mentioned. The last three follow Jay and have various adventures in Oz.
The common factor here is they are all losers, unable to chat to girls as people and who have sudden irresistible urges to do bad things, such as poo on water slides, and can say hardly anything without enormous amounts of swearing.
The film is written and directed by the same two-man team – Damon Beesley and Iain Morris – who wrote and directed everything else with the word Inbetweeners in it. They have stuck to the same winning formula religiously which has meant trousering much dosh while portraying for teenage boys and young men an interesting, and somewhat depressing, set of role models.
Apart from that, the film has a fairly predictable narrative which strays into strange realms on occasions, such as when the four losers go off into the Outback to try to find Jay’s old girlfriend, who, sensibly, has tried to get as far away from the idiot as possible.
That scene ends with Jay’s ex, after 96 minutes of wandering about, telling him to go away, which they do without much fuss, aiming for Thailand – which seems to hint at a probable Inbetweeners 3.
It’s apparently not necessary to encourage those so-minded in the 15-30 age group to go to see it – as the figures suggest that they all have already, or surely will do. And as for the 30-90 age group likely to be looking for more from a film offering, we will just have to wait for a version without all the swearing (which might mean it will be about 11 minutes long) appearing as a Christmas treat.