Hamlet 2
Release Date: August 22, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
14
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Funny excuses an awful lot, and at its best, Hamlet 2 is nothing short of hilarious. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
As a movie, Hamlet 2 is lively, energetically daft, and very, very scrappy -- a broader, more loony-tunes knockoff of "Waiting for Guffman." Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's Coogan's breakthrough star performance that holds it all together. He's sensational. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is an ideal showcase for the talents of Coogan. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Like its low-key star, Hamlet 2 is more likely to elicit quiet chuckles than raucous laughter. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Occasionally sloppy, with a finale so abrupt and incoherent that it feels like something is missing. But it's also pleasantly odd and truly funny, and it builds in strength as it goes along. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Coogan's screen persona is vain, dim, angry, and deeply miserable, and his handful of scenes here with a smilingly harsh Catherine Keener are little masterpieces of comic sadomasochism. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
A frequently amusing and consistently outrageous but ultimately tiresome farce. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Arquette wander in and out of frame, but like everyone else in this film, they're eclipsed by Coogan's gloriously unhinged performance, which has the lunatic, semi-meta tone of a parody within a parody. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A rather mediocre experience, offering sporadic laughs but never achieving the level of consistent humor necessary to make this memorable. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The film, which really is sloppy, slips around in terms of tone and goes every which way. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Elisabeth Shue has a strange role as a version of herself who has given up acting for nursing. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDuane Byrge
Attaining somewhat of a bad parody of a comedy, screenwriters Andrew Fleming and Pam Brady have slapped together a string of gags in a hit-and-miss dither. Some of it is quite brainy. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Mostly, though, there's the endlessly resourceful, endlessly inventive, bedazzling Mr. Coogan. Hamlet Schmamlet. Not since "Death of a Salesman" has failure been quite so entertaining. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Not infrequently the movie is as mediocre as its target. The great Steve Coogan movie has yet to be made. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Coogan's mopiness is oddly riveting. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis Harvey
Amusing but unevenly inspired tale of a deluded high school drama teacher's attempt to stage a career-saving extravaganza has some laughs, to be sure. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Not nearly as uproarious as it should be. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
Hamlet 2 is as needy as its hero -- because it wants not to be probing or profound or even witty but, above all else, to be loved. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Only in its aggressively imaginative profanity is the film consistent. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
It's an unhinged, off-the-wall comedy that will try anything once, an uneven film in which the hits are so dead-on that the misses don't seem to matter. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
It all adds up to the kind of bad family entertainment likely to raise only a few eyebrows. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Let's just say that, when the parody looks indistinguishable from the parodied, something's gone awry. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
There's a lot of potential here, and a sharper script might have made all the difference. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
In the new comedy Hamlet 2, Coogan comes perilously close to wearing out his welcome. It's actually a pretty fascinating sight. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
So wearying that it makes you feel duped for being open to it in the first place. Hamlet 2 works so hard at being entertaining, in that quirky, Indie 101 sense, that it just grinds you down. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Much like the play within it, Hamlet 2 is lousy. The main difference is that the play is SUPPOSED to be awful. The movie about the play is supposed to be funny. Read full review
12
New York PostKyle Smith
The laughs begin with the excellent title Hamlet 2 - and they end there. Read full review
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