- Culture
- 01 Sep 11
The inbetweeners are back- bigger, brasher and as brilliant as ever
Boners and vomit and scat jokes ahoy! A hilarious, drawn-out exercise in teen humiliation, The Inbetweeners Movie sees the characters of the hit E4 show head to Malia for a lads’ holiday, expecting “sun, sea, booze, minge, fanny and sex” – in short, the time of their lives. But though the scenery may be different, they lads are exactly as we remember them. Will (Simon Bird) remains a patronising virgin, Simon (Joe Thomas) is still stalking his now ex-girlfriend Carly, Jay (James Buckley) continues to hunt down the ever-elusive “clunge” and Neil (Blake Harrison) – well, he’s happy simply being there.
Though the lads’ holiday conceit is an overused one, it works brilliantly here. They genuinely evolve as characters as the film progresses. Throughout, the writers do what they do best, combining gross-out humour with believable, bawdy banter and a lot of dick jokes. The result: an immature and intensely watchable glimpse into the life of teenage boys.
The plot lags slightly, and there is a void left by the underuse or exclusion of some of the brilliant adult characters from the series, with Greg Davies stealing the show in his brief cameo. The actors also struggle somewhat in the more poignant scenes (“More poignant than a masturbation scene involving a hockey glove full of ham?” I hear you cry. “How could it be?”), and a bit that involves Simon crying is embarrassing not just for the characters, but for the decidedly dry-eyed actor.
Not that you care. You want to know if Jay is revealed to have a tiny penis, if Neil motorboats a dinner lady, if there’s a dance sequence, and if the line “She’s so wet I can hear waves breaking in her fanny” is even funnier on the big screen. The answer is ‘yes’.