Having been a 14-year-old boy at one stage in my life, I can say with some confidence that the mind of a 14-year-old boy is an unpleasant place to spend any amount of time. It can get grimy, steamy, sweaty and sticky in there. Now, the quartet of lads at the core of the Inbetweeners franchise – once a hilariously smutty UK television comedy, now a less-hilariously smutty series of movies – have chronologically moved beyond that delicate age but emotionally and psychologically they remain rooted (fnar fnar) in place. So does The Inbetweeners. That’s all well and good if you’re in the market for tacky, tawdry (and occasionally funny) gags about bums, boobs and bad taste. But that’s 95 per cent of what these movies offer, so anyone seeking something more substantial should move along.
In The Inbetweeners 2, Jay, the most sex-obsessed of the bunch, has relocated to Australia and regularly regales his pals back home with extraordinary tales of erotic conquest and koala-punching (not a euphemism). Their lives sucking in various ways (Will is friend-free at uni, Simon has a nightmarish girlfriend, Neil is a fucking moron), they decide to pay him a visit, only to find (a) Jay is full of shit, and (b) Australia has been overrun by backpacking wankers sporting dreadlocks, toting guitars and spouting new-age crap. Adventures involving poo, the objectification of women, waterslides, gay panic, the outback and sexual humiliation ensue.
