Hamlet 2 not actually a Shakespeare sequel
Hamlet 2 is not the film you’ve been led to believe it is. Emphasizing Pam Brady’s ( South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut Team America: World Police ) involvement as co-writer alongside Andrew Fleming the marketing specifically emphasizes the zany comedy it’s likely she contributed like the wonderfully outrageous musical number “Rock Me Sexy Jesus.” That’s only half the film though.
It isn’t uncommon for films to have more than one writer but the script is usually so vigorously tweaked tuned and massaged that any specific alteration one person may have made either blends seamlessly or is eventually lost in a sea of studio notes. In recent memory there hasn’t been a film with such an overtly dichotomous writing style as Hamlet 2 (with the obvious exception of vignette collections you nit-picking dweebs). There’s the as-advertised South Park- ish shock humour but it’s immiscibly combined with offbeat situational laughs in the style of Election or the cult sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. While both approaches are successful in different ways they’re still extremely distinct and there’s a lingering feeling that choosing one or the other would have been more effective.
The story follows Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) a recovering alcoholic and out-of-work actor who’s fallen from bit-parts in mediocre movies to food processor commercials to herpes medication commercials and finally to teaching high school drama in Tuscon Arizona. When the school board threatens to shut down his class for financial reasons Marschz tries to save it the only way he knows how — with the power of theatre. In a single marathon session he writes a sequel to Hamlet that as one character observes “might be so bad it’s actually good again.”
The best joke in the film is Marschz himself an aging talentless man who understands how pathetic he is but has never developed any other employable skills. Marschz’s character is bone dry awkward and hilarious though his realistic trajectory is limited by the extreme suspension of disbelief required by the main plot. Intentionally hitting every beat of the stock “high school teacher inspires at-risk youths to create art and better their lives” plot Hamlet 2 verges on absurdity too often for Marschz’s arc to ever completely deliver. The consequences of his life-ruining decisions diffuse somewhere in the fantasy whereas if the entire story were approached with a dryer tone they would have made for a great punchline à la Election. But that would preclude “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” which is definitely the film’s high point.
Like Marschz’s fictional script there’s a glimmer of brilliance somewhere in Hamlet 2 buried beneath the disparate comedic approaches and a handful of jokes that are either too easy or too slapstick. Unlike that fictional script however the product around the glimmer is still worthwhile.
