Hamlet 2 (2008) ****

I've never really liked the inspiration teacher films. You know the ones. Stand and Deliver, Mr. Holland's Opus, and so on (Lean on Me is excluded from this list). What Hamlet 2 does is take that sub genre and turn it upside down by making the teacher a pathetic moron and letting the students learn from his mistakes.

Steve Coogan plays Dana Marchz, a washed up actor who is a drama teacher in Tuscon. His class is usually two students and his poorly attended plays are usually stage remakes of big Hollywood movies. When he gets a large influx of students he goes into Mr. Holland mode, even though none of the kids respond to him. It's not until the drama program gets eliminated by budget cuts that he gets the kids motivated by making an over the top sequel to William Shakespeare's Hamlet which includes a time machine and appearances by Einstein and Jesus Christ.

Hamlet 2 is not like watching a person stumble into something bigger and better than himself. He train wrecks into it. He sinks the Titanic into it. Dana's life is literally falling apart around him and this little play ends up a redemption tale somewhat with him ironically playing the role of a current trendsetter Jesus Christ who appears in the musical number "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" which will be in your head for days after seeing this movie. I'm humming it right now. The film accomplishes the parody of those mentor movies but ends up in the same place- giving something to their students, even if it is offensive and not politically correct. It's one of those movies that's funny, but it's not turned on trying to get laughs every five minutes. It gets them anyway. And no, I'm not giving this praise because of my Elisabeth Shue fetish.