The Trip to Spain

"The Trip to Spain" is the third in the series of 'culinery travelogue' TV programmes by Steve Coogan ("Philomena") and Rob Brydon ("Gavin and Stacey"). The pair travel by car through Spain sampling the local delicacies while constantly trying to self-salve their fragile egos and trying to out-do each other with comedy spiel. This is of course not a "documentary" as such, since the pair are playing up to their extreme alter-egos (presumably!) of what people expect them to be like. Actors playing their family, agents, etc. call them at various points on the trip to either pour oil on troubled waters or (more often) add fuel to the fire.

The six original half hour TV episodes have been edited down into a feature length journey. And this is part of the problem. Repetition that can be forgiven and forgotten about when you see an episode every week, but can become tiresome when forced on you as a continuous stream.

In this case the repetitive content delivered by Coogan and Brydon are their (normally very good) impersonations of famous stars (most of which it has to be said are British so won't resonate with a non-UK audience). Roger Moore in particular gets trotted out INTERMINABLY and while some of it is extremely funny - an exchange between Moore as Bond and Scaramanga had me snorting tea out of my nose - it all gets too much by the end.

Appearing to recognise this need for more variety, additional characters from Steve's team join them for a part of their trip - Emma (Clare Keelan) and Yolanda (Marta Barrio). Unfortunately, the additions are just plain dull: they just sit alongside Coogan and Brydon and laugh at their impressions, adding nothing. Now if they had been a couple of good female impersonators, like Ronni Ancona and Jan Ravens, that could act as a foil to the male duo, THAT would have been entertaining.

The film also suffers from "Top Gear Challenge" disease. The problem with filming a car journey through Spain is that you know there are not twenty film crews deployed along the route to do the filming.... all of the cameras are carefully set up in advance with someone on a walkie-talkie saying "OK, Steve - coffee down, we're ready for you to drive over the hill now". So something that should feel natural and documentary-like feels 100% the opposite.

So... if you like Coogan and Brydon, and especially if you liked their Northern England and Italy "trips", then you will get more laughs out of this one. But I think the concoction needs to be put through the blender and re-heated before it comes out for a fourth outing.

(For the full graphical review, please visit bob-the-movie-man.com).

If you've come along for the other "Trips" with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, you clearly know what you're in for and what you want out of "The Trip to Spain," the third installment of the British TV mini-series cut into a feature-length film about two middle-aged friends on a food tour for a magazine.

"Spain" does not mess with the formula. We get all the impersonations, stunning vistas, food porn, literature/poetry references, etc. that we signed up for. The only thing that has changed are where these fictional versions of Steve and Rob are in terms of life stage and how they're dealing with their newly entered 50s in both their careers and personal lives.

If anything, the chemistry between Coogan and Brydon (and director Michael Winterbottom) has only gotten stronger. They're able to devise hilarious bits on the fly even more naturally than before. Unlike "The Trip" and "The Trip to Italy," almost no drama unfolds during the course of the film. Steve and Rob's never-ending game of one-upsmanship is what largely keeps this film afloat, though they each do deal independently with struggles regarding love and family.

As such, "Spain" ends up filling in the portraits of these two friends and their lives with more details, as if the painting was sketched out in "The Trip" and started to be filled in in "Italy." With just about everything else in this movie remaining a constant, we're able to spend more time looking more closely at those details - and by the same token, Winterbottom can add more nuance. The depiction of Steve as Don Quixote and Rob as Sancho Panza creates a solid focal point to better examine these characters, who it turns out are quite like their respective Cervantes creations.

So little about "The Trip" films could be considered mainstream that it feels odd to describe them as cinematic comfort food, but to the set of tastes that have taken to them so far, they are exactly that. The sense of humor, their dynamic and Winterbottom's naturalist approach are so reliable that even with minimal changes from film to film, the series ages well. "Italy" initially felt like a retread, but "Spain" feels like an improvement just by virtue of time, all of its elements and flavors improving and congealing with patience and experience.

All this makes the film's twist ending that much more unexpected. Suddenly there's a hint of plot continuity and it's as though we have no idea what to do with it. How the series proceeds will mean everything, but for now it's just a dash of mystery in an otherwise familiar and enjoyable film.

~Steven C

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Good but not great, this movie had me smiling throughout at the lighthearted banter, which was apparently mostly unscripted.

The movie follows two friends traveling through Spain so that one of them can write a series of restaurant reviews.

The focus is on their dialogue while they visit some tourist sights or sit in restaurants. There is not much of a story, and overall the film comes across more like a travel documentary rather than a movie.

The dialogue mostly covers food, Spanish history, and being middle aged. Most of the humor comes from the friends taking mild jabs at each other, and their impressions of mostly British celebrities such as Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Mick Jagger and Roger Moore. (There are many James Bond references.)

Overall, the formula is entertaining but I would be lying if I said it was not wearing a bit thin by the end of the film. I understand there are now three "Trip" films. I have not seen the previous two and I want to see them, although I am in no hurry because this is not the sort of comedy you can easily binge on.

I liked the two previous Trip movies, but they had something more than two comedians riffing off each other in exotic locations, they had some personal connection. While Trip to Spain uses the exact same formula, it lacks anything that makes me relate to the characters. It shows them having midlife drama with agents leaving or chasing them, but that's about their job, not their life. And the additional one with the son of Coogan feels artificial, as it doesn't really affect the overall story. What I would have liked was to see the relationship between the two characters evolve, but in fact it stays exactly the same.

The depiction of Spain is even more sketchy than in the other two movies, which is saying something and they are over 50. Instead of glamorous actors that seduce women in European tourist traps, they turn into the two old Muppets!

I hope there is some evolution in the next film, if there will be any, because even the jokes were duplicated from previous movies.

There's a lot to like about this movie: it's sense of humor, it's appreciation of culture and cuisine, the way the characters play off each other, but it's also not a film I would fault anybody for not liking. There are times when Coogan and Brydon's dialogue should've been trimmed, where gags went on too long, but overall, the experience of dinning with them as they travel across Spain was remarkably enjoyable. I enjoyed this enough to make a point to watch "The Trip to Italy", though when that'll happen, I can't really say. If you like Coogan, Brydon, food, or travel, this film is a good way to spend an hour and forty-five minutes. F