Hamlet 2 (2008): C

Boasting a title more amusing than anything contained in its 90 minutes, Hamlet 2 concerns a failed actor-turned-high school drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona who, in order to save the school’s theater program, stages the titular story. The doofus in question is Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), an untalented moron obsessed with inspirational-classroom movies whose obliviousness to his own stupidity recalls that of The Office’s Michael Smith, and whose self-penned sequel to the Shakespeare classic confuses and rankles the community. Coogan is given free reign to indulge in improvisatory buffoonery, and his pratfalling and verbal stupidity might have been brilliantly funny had Andrew Fleming’s film (co-scripted by South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut scribe Pam Brady) found a way to suitably lay the groundwork for its premise. Instead, however, there’s a persistent sense that the title (and accompanying concept) is meant to carry the bulk of the comedic load, that every awkward, profane stab at humor (including those by supporting players Catherine Keener, David Arquette, and Amy Poehler) is supposed to be hilarious simply because, you know, the movie is called Hamlet 2! Given the wealth of inane silliness offered up, it’s inevitable that an occasional riff hits its mark. Yet despite Coogan’s enthusiasm, the whole thing feels undercooked to the point of being raw, such that when the climactic performance of Marschz’s play features a Grease-ish musical number called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” – replete with Marschz as Jesus as Fonzie – the sequence’s insane randomness is disastrously undercut by the film’s failure to recognize that randomness only works if there’s first some firmly established context (here, that would have been the play’s larger narrative) for it to be juxtaposed against.