Beyond The Hub The Inbetweeners 2 Movie Review by DJ Forrest

If you’ve watched any of the Inbetweeners episodes or seen the last Inbetweeners movie, you’ll know the characters, how completely inane they are and how incredibly funny the show is.  The Inbetweeners 2 movie tops both the series and the first movie completely, but sadly, there will be no more movies or episodes of the show as the cast say they are too old to play the roles now.

The story picks up during the Easter holidays, the lads Simon and Will are at University and having a really crap time, Simon’s girlfriend is a complete nut job and is not only obsessive but extremely destructive, mostly with Simon’s belongings, which is different to how she came across in the last film, but then given how Simon treated her in the last film, yeah can see how she might have become a distrusting girlfriend.  Neil is working in a bank which is interesting mostly from the fact that Neil didn’t look clever enough to work anywhere, and Jay is in Australia taking a gap year.  What’s surprising about Jay is that even after he sends Neil an email telling him about all the fit birds, the daily sex with multiple partners, the size of the mansion, the fact he’s ditched his girlfriend, that the three lads still want to travel half way across the world to check it out, even though deep down they know it will be another of Jay’s complete and utterly bogus tales, but let’s face it, it is still a holiday to Australia…

Once in Australia, Simon plans on ditching his girlfriend, Will meets Katie, a school friend he never expected to meet again and they both hit it off, and Neil…well Neil hits it off with an older woman, but more about that shortly. 

As you can imagine, Jay’s lifestyle is different to how he portrayed it to Neil.  It’s really a 2 man tent in the front garden of his Uncle’s home.  His Uncle is a…well…a, he’s the Australian version of Jay’s dad.  He’s the sort of bloke you’d want to avoid in lifts, or entering bathrooms after he’d exited, and he’s definitely not the kind of guy you want to see making lewd tongue actions while you’re Skyping your girlfriend.

After this first night, all four lads decide to leave on a backpacking holiday and experience some of the culture of Australia, a more spiritual journey as far as Will is concerned, whereas the lads want to head to Byron Bay where Neil plans to swim with dolphins, Jay wants to go to the holiday resort, Simon never wants to return to England again and Will meets back up with Katie, after following her bus in the Peter Andre Mysterious Girl car belonging to Jay.

From the off you know that things will never go to plan and it does take some time before things escalate into chaos.  Of course, the laughs are there from the off, it’s a steady pace of laughs and chuckles and hands clapped over the mouth that such a thing could happen.  But apparently these things did really happen, as the story of the 4 lads are really about the exploits of the two writers Damon Beesley and Iain Morris when they were teenagers – those poor boys!

My favourite scene has to be in the water flumes, I don’t think I stopped laughing for some time after it, my sides positively ached.  The acting is pure class and the timing was perfect. 

Now back to Neil and why this review goes into Beyond the Hub.  When I sat and viewed the Blu-ray I never for one minute thought I’d see anyone from either Torchwood or Doctor Who.  I thought for once I might be able to sit through an entire film and not say, ‘OMFG, it’s….’, so you can imagine my surprise when watching mid way through the film, when the backpackers are sitting around the camp fire, the music is playing, the spliff is being shared around that one familiar woman made an appearance.

Neil’s older woman is LUCY COHU!

Lucy’s character was there with her husband, they were going through a rough patch on account of someone’s infidelity.  She was rolling her own smokes and dancing around the camp fire while Will sang ‘The First Time, ever I saw your face’ as if he’d just trapped his crown jewels in the desk drawer!  She wasn’t in the story all that much, but she was there long enough for me to grin, shake my head, at the sheer, omg it’s Lucy Cohu…Jack’s daughter…Torchwood…Broadchurch…. Before feeling the force of several cushions hurled in my general direction.

If you haven’t seen the film already, buy it and watch it.  It’s out on Blu-ray and it’s absolutely worth the money. 

My favourite character is Neil, I don’t know what it is about him, perhaps it’s his pure innocence, his complete lack of knowledge or the fact that he just doesn’t let anything faze him.

Simon and Will clearly may have a level of knowledge between them academically but it’s clear that neither of them should or will have a relationship with the opposite sex and Jay clearly is a sexual predator who should never have a relationship. 

Yet having said that, the humour that comes from the four boys as we follow them through school to Uni, you just can’t help but watch them, like them, laugh at them, laugh with them.  So if you’re stuck for something to watch of an evening and you have Netflix, go and settle down for a series or two of The Inbetweeners and see how many people you recognise from the Whoniverse. 

And while you’re still thinking about that, go check out our Connections Page and read our ‘Inbetweeners 2+’ article.