DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A CRITIC.
“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
If you haven’t yet seen the movie The Trip (2011), in brief it is a movie about nothing that follows two comedians, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, as they play themselves in a loosely fictional movie where they are going on a week-long trip acting as food critics in the north of England. Or some such thing. That wasn’t the point of the movie. The point of the movie was to have two comedians have largely improvised banter scenes take up the bulk of a movie, the food critic trip thing acting as a far-and-away backdrop as to why. It’s a movie about nothing, and much like Seinfeld it is hilarious.
The Trip to Italy (2014) is its sequel that uses the same pretense; two comedians playing themselves on a fictional trip for a magazine. If you liked the first one, the second is much of the same. If you didn’t see the first one, it doesn’t matter. There are only a few things that might cause confusion but they end up being of no consequence anyway.
What I liked:
Despite the jokes not really being as funny as in the first movie, it is still rather humorous.
The accents and impersonations. They are quite amusing, especially since I also enjoy throwing my voice.
The plot holes can be overlooked because the point of the story is not the plot, but rather, the conversations between Steve and Rob. Why is the character doing that? Oh it doesn’t matter, look! He’s doing another funny accent! Haha!
The scenery in Italy is much more spectacular than in the north of England. The scenery in the end of the movie is my favorite (mountains, fog, mountain villages), but that which is in the beginning (seaside beaches and fishing villages) is equally breathtaking. I wanna go to a italia right now-ah.
What I disliked:
There are a lot of inconsistencies. As I mentioned above, the plot matters not since that’s not the point of the comedy, but it’s the simple things, like one of the characters saying he isn’t going to drink, he hasn’t had a drink in about nine months, and then a few scenes later starting to have a drink with dinner (they never get drunk), with not much more of an explanation than “when in Rome.” And that in and of itself is not bothersome, but the accumulation of these little quirks irks me.
At times the characters laughing in the conversations are a little overwhelming, almost like they’re bashing you in the face, screaming, “OK NOW IT’S TIME TO LAUGH YOU WANKERS!”
The ending is abrupt.
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Overall, I enjoyed this movie. I didn’t find it as enjoyable as the first, but only slightly less so. I still recommend it (to the 4 readers of this cobby-wobby relic blog). I give it 4 Michael Caines, 2 Sean Connerys, and a Small Man Trapped in a Box.
Stoic 