Review: "Hamlet 2" racks up gay-friendly laughs

Director/co-writer Andrew Fleming

The brainchild of gay writer/director Andrew Fleming (Threesome, Dick, The Craft) and co-writer Pam Brady (South Park, Team America), Hamlet 2 is a litany of F-bombs and abominations disguised as a "let's put on a show!" feel-good movie. It's also, thankfully, absolutely hilarious. I can't remember the last time I laughed this much or this hard in a movie theater; Hamlet 2 had me at "I feel like I've been raped ... in the face!" and kept me all the way through the musical extravaganza climax.

Yes, Dana's sequel to Hamlet is a musical. With a time machine.

There's plenty gay to be had in the film as well. Dana's star pupil, Rand (Spring Awakening vet Skylar Astin) is a gay teen clearly not handling his sexuality well ... not to mention the inconvenient (and inexplicable) crush he has on his straight teacher. When Dana's script for Hamlet 2 makes Rand's character, Laertes, gay, the kid freaks out, setting into motion a whole chain of events that pushes the movie to its wonderfully bizarre and elaborate finish.

Now, Rand is a mess. In fact, he's fairly villainous and prone to violence. But he should be, shouldn't he? Any gay man who turned to the competitive and emotionally-charged world of drama in high school for comfort or protection will know exactly what Rand is going through ... and it ain't pretty. What Hamlet 2 manages to do with the character is capture how sensitive and volatile questioning teenagers can be when they're threatened. And as this isn't a true tragedy, things aren't all angst and hissyfits for the poor kid.

Skylar Astin as Rand (and Coogan as "Sexy Jesus")

While Rand is a minor character, he's not the only queer element that Hamlet 2 offers a gay audience. With characteristic obliviousness to his situation, Dana hires the Gay Men's Chorus of Tuscon (actually played by the Gay Men's Chorus of Albuquerque, but who's counting?) to sing in the already-troubled show, which doesn't go over well with some of the parents.

And to hear them croon Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" and "Maniac" (from Flashdance) in between original musical numbers like "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" and "Raped in the Face" (yes, it resurfaces as a musical number) is as close to high camp as an American film can hope to get.

Aside from Coogan (who's huge in the UK and recently hit US shores as the ill-fated rookie director in Tropic Thunder), Keener, and Arquette, the film also features a memorable turn by Amy Poehler as Cricket Feldstein, a vicious ACLU lawyer who appears to help Marschz when the school tries to shut down his play for obscenity. (Upon meeting Dana she immediately points out, "If your wondering about the last name, I married a Jew.") It's not just the Christians who are sent up here ... if anything, the lefties and creative types take more of a beating, and her toxic character is a force to behold.

Catherine Keener and David Arquette

And, perhaps most memorably, 80's romcom queen Elisabeth Shue appears as herself. Or, rather, a version of herself that got fed up with taking "steaming piles of sh*t to the face" in Hollywood and is now working at the Prickly Pear Fertility Clinic in Tucson as a nurse. The scene where she tells Dana's students that the thing she misses most about acting is "making out with all those hot guys" is pure poetry, and her willingness to lampoon her own faded celebrity and career-making roles makes for some of the movie's best moments.