STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Will (Joey Pollairi) is the new guy in high school, who stands out as a prime target for bullies. He soon makes friends with Jay (Zach Pearlman), Simon (Bubba Lewis) and Neil (Mark L. Young), three other social misfits who are not complete dorks but far from the coolest kids in school, either.
It always spurs you on as a Brit when something home grown becomes a success, as I imagine it probably does for anyone from a small country that's not at the centre of the world (not anymore, anyway.) But it's a sad thing and a sign of the times when the only way to tell what a massive success it's been is when the Americans go and remake it. In fact, this is almost inevitable. And, inevitably, a whole lot worse.
The best way I can describe The Inbetweeners USA is: imagine you've just read a really great Stephen King novel, and then see a film adaptation of it that is just like what you've read, but just...lamer. That really is how this is like. It's everything you've already seen in the British version, just done by American actors and not even half as bloody well. Where cultural slang changes, it becomes most evident and most painful ("bus 'turds'???") and further showcases what a desperate, sorry, insincere mess this whole thing is. To add insult to injury, the performers don't even look like their British counter parts, and so we have an overweight Jay, a hippie like Neil and Will and Simon resembling the Jonas brothers. To not even respect your source material is the biggest disrespect.
If you're the type that would rather drive a Mondeo than a Mercedes, this will definitely be your thing. But I imagine you're different to most people. *
Will (Joey Pollairi) is the new guy in high school, who stands out as a prime target for bullies. He soon makes friends with Jay (Zach Pearlman), Simon (Bubba Lewis) and Neil (Mark L. Young), three other social misfits who are not complete dorks but far from the coolest kids in school, either.
It always spurs you on as a Brit when something home grown becomes a success, as I imagine it probably does for anyone from a small country that's not at the centre of the world (not anymore, anyway.) But it's a sad thing and a sign of the times when the only way to tell what a massive success it's been is when the Americans go and remake it. In fact, this is almost inevitable. And, inevitably, a whole lot worse.
The best way I can describe The Inbetweeners USA is: imagine you've just read a really great Stephen King novel, and then see a film adaptation of it that is just like what you've read, but just...lamer. That really is how this is like. It's everything you've already seen in the British version, just done by American actors and not even half as bloody well. Where cultural slang changes, it becomes most evident and most painful ("bus 'turds'???") and further showcases what a desperate, sorry, insincere mess this whole thing is. To add insult to injury, the performers don't even look like their British counter parts, and so we have an overweight Jay, a hippie like Neil and Will and Simon resembling the Jonas brothers. To not even respect your source material is the biggest disrespect.
If you're the type that would rather drive a Mondeo than a Mercedes, this will definitely be your thing. But I imagine you're different to most people. *