The Trip to Italy

If you liked The Trip, you will like this one, as it is basically the same movie. The same people, the same jokes, the same outdoors and food shots. The only thing that changed is that instead of 44, they are now closer to 50. Their hair is more gray and less. How they relate to the world has changed, children grew up. And, of course, they're in Italy.

To me, one of the failings of the film is that it doesn't really portray the places so well. I understand it's a character piece, but by limiting the surroundings, they also make the movie feel more like a play, diminished in scope, if not in meaning.

Still, if you watched The Trip and wanted more, watch this, too.

As with their first "The Trip", I've had ambivalent feelings about these Coogan/Brydon travel/food/comedy serials. This new series follows much of the first.

If you loved the first, that's good news. But the program is a mixed bag to where you really have to call out the good and the bad.

First, the good. Coogan and Brydon have a great personal chemistry that comes off in the series as something unscripted. The locations are gorgeous, and the soundtrack adds to the grandeur of place. The series is also somewhat groundbreaking in introducing a genre of travel-food- comedy, which has its merits.

The restaurants featured in the series are researched and quite extraordinary. And the literary trail of the likes of Byron and Shelley add a cultural relevance to the program where, I would have to say, I would enjoy partaking in such a Magical Mystery Tour myself.

Next, the bad. If you removed the impersonations of Michael Caine, Sean Connery, etc., 70% of the program would be on the cutting room floor. There are few themes of humor in the program, and they are mercilessly beaten to an absolute pulp. Can you imagine spending a week-long vacation in Italy with a friend who basically ran the same gag everywhere you went?

This makes the program the Beavis & Butthead of the BBC set. If the gag gets old or doesn't work for you, the show has little else to offer you besides a few good visual scenes with the sound turned off.

Like the Magical Mystery Tour, the show's arc comes off as rather aimless and without a real destination. If the joy is in the travel, and some of it is, that would be one thing. But if there's no joy in bad impersonation banter of actors from years gone by, there's too much to redeem itself.

As a whole, the program offers glimpses of creative ideas and possibilities while failing to execute to their potential. Injecting an actual scriptwriter might have seemed anathema to the program's vision and goals, but there are few programs I've seen this year that so sorely could have improved with just one decent writer.

Not very familiar with the actors, I enjoyed some of the conversations although the imitations do start to get annoying halfway the movie. You can see they are great actors but you do feel the script pouring through lots of the time... It has to look like 2 friends getting together having funny conversations but it just doesn't work. Plus I got very annoyed with the maffia/Al Pacino/Marlon Brando imitations, it was just too easy. Overall it felt more like Michael Winterbottom has started his midlife crisis and uses the actors, the script and Italy to get to the (michaelwinter)bottom of it. A pointless one night stand, 2 older English guys "trying" to be funny, beautiful scenery, it just breathed midlife crisis everywhere. I just found it too easy, he could have made something better honestly, maybe put in a weird end with someone dying or something a bit more shocking.. now its just a small river of sometimes funny conversations between two 40something English guys who still want to shag all young, beautiful girls, and who do feel more male when they succeed in this, while they get drunk on gin and tonics... It looks like Michael Winterbottom went to Italy himself, red some Lord Byron and Don Juan, felt himself a bit like Woody Allen and combined this with his upcoming midlife crisis and this was what came out.....The scenery is beautiful though and you will crave for a fab pasta just because of the food shots.

If anybody is familiar with either of this pair, The Trip To Italy is really a must see series/film. The first instalment from these two, The Trip, which was set in the Lake District was initially a series & then released widely as a film. This new version is much of the same, and as the title suggests, yes you've guessed it, sees this clever duo wining & dining in some great Italian locations. The series is very easy to watch, clever, witty, and with superb impressions, but most of all the on screen chemistry this pair have is what makes the show. They bounce off each other perfectly, & in terms of great on screen pairings, they are right up there with some of the best. I honestly can't recommend this enough, i have scored it a nine, simply because i have only watched the opening two episodes, but if it carries on in the same form, it will be getting a big fat Ten !!

Top Class Telly.

After laughing along with Brydon and Coogan savaging their own vanities and all of life around them, I found some of the reviews here to be more comical than the film. It's as if "The Trip to Italy" totally escapes them, probably much to the two main actors' amusement. The beauty of the ridiculous and sometimes lame impressions belies that the two are not trying to be serious travel/food hosts but two comics riffing on the idiocy of the business they are in .. and much more. This is satire, not some boring Anthony Bourdain exploration of food and culture. It's two goofy guys making fun of themselves. That so many people miss that simple point boggles my mind.