BEFORE: Wow, what a nightmare I had trying to watch this film online - I'd swear it was on Hulu when I added it to my watchlist, but that was probably two years ago since I haven't done a Steve Coogan CHAIN in a while. So I was finally able to link to it, only to find it's not on Hulu any more, of course. No worries, I'll just figure out which streaming service it IS on now, whether it's Tubi or Roku or Mubi or Freevee... Ah, great, it's on Amazon Prime, just like "Alan Partridge" was. Umm, no dice because it's not free with Prime membership, you have to have the additional AMC+ add-on, which is another few bucks per month. OK, where else is it - ah, great, my cable system has it available On Demand - but no, it shows up in the listings but I don't pay extra for the IFC channel, so it's not going to play for me. Anywhere else? Roku channel, if you pay for premium. $12.99 on Vudu? No WAY. AppleTV and iTunes have it, but for $4.99 - that's still too much. Any film that's three years old should be $2.99 on iTunes, no exceptions.
It's clear that the AMC/IFC organization wanted exclusive streaming rights, on all services, and great, I hope that works out for them, but how am I going to watch this film TODAY? Normally I'd send Apple a few bucks, but they overpriced the rental, too. I could join AppleTV, watch the film and then immediately quit the service, I've done that two or three times, but that would STILL cost me $5 in this situation. I'm not proud of this, but I found the film on a bootleg streaming site, one I keep open in a tab (JUST for emergencies such as this, I swear) and I've found one of this year's three Thanksgiving movies there, also, because that film isn't on ANY streaming service... So yeah, mea culpa, I watched the film illegally - but come on, it was free with a Hulu subscription probably 6 months ago, I just missed the window. I don't even know if the film is WORTH $5, so why should I pay it? Anyway, it's not my responsibility to report bootleg streaming sites, I paid for FOUR movie tickets this summer, in addition to 1/2 of all the streaming subscriptions we have AND 2/3 of the cable bill, I should, theoretically, be able to watch any movie I want without paying any more than I already am, per month.
Look, we fought this battle before in the early 2000's with music, and file-sharing sites like Napster. The record companies (and Metallica) LOST - umm, I think - and music became like free (or close to free) everywhere, like, who buys ALBUMS any more? Instead you just stream your music via Pandora or Spotify and the artists get totally screwed, unless they have billions of fans and can make their money selling t-shirts and concert tickets. The same thing will happen to movies, they should all stream for free (or small monthly subscriptions) and they should all be available everywhere, at any time. I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could find a way to download or view any movie for FREE, I choose not to because I believe in the streaming system, except for when it lets me down like this.
Steve Coogan carries over from "Alan Partridge".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Trip to Italy" (Movie #2,977), "The Trip to Spain" (Movie #2,978)
THE PLOT: Actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan travel from Troy to Ithaca following in the footsteps of Odysseus.
AFTER: OK, yes, I was right - this movie is not worth renting for $5. I have to set my limits somewhere, and this is where I choose to draw the line. Great movie to watch for free, or for a small portion of your monthly subscription (watch more, and your cost per movie drops!) but if I'd rented this for $4.99 I would have felt like a real dolt. And I say this as someone who has enjoyed these "The Trip" movies. But there's something unusual about all of the movies, and that is that they're edited-down versions of TV series - there are about 10 30-minute episodes for each "Trip" that Steve and Rob have taken together, but I've chosen to not watch the whole series, but instead to wait for the edited movie versions. This is a MOVIE blog, after all, not a TV series blog.
Now, I would like to assume that someone has taken the BEST BITS from 10 30-minute episodes and shoved them all into a 90-minute movie, but how can I be sure? Does it even really matter? How is there a market for a 90-minute movie made from 10 TV episodes? Could you imagine a 90-minute "Law & Order" film made from pieced-together clips from 10 different episodes? OK, maybe that's a bad example. What if they made a 90-minute movie with the Muppets, and it was just bits from 10 different episodes of "The Muppets" TV show (the one from the 70's, I guess...) and the editor still tried to create a coherent plot out of that? There might be an untapped market here, the only thing I can think of that comes close was that last "Pink Panther" movie starring Peter Sellers, after he died they took the best gags with Inspector Clouseau in them and just strung them together, creating a movie that both was, and wasn't, a new installment in the franchise.
But I digress - if you haven't seen the previous "Trip" movies, these two actors, who are also friends, play fictionalized versions of themselves as they go on an extended vacation through a European country, eating at fine restaurants, seeing the sights, and doing impressions as they poke fun at other actors and themselves. So if you HAVE seen the previous films, same feckin' thing here. You know at some point they'll be competing to see who can sound the most like Sir Anthony Hopkins, or Hugh Grant, or each other. Sure, OK, there were a couple of new impressions here, Brydon points out that Coogan played Stan Laurel in a film, and this gives him a chance to suppose what if Laurel had to act opposite TOM Hardy, and not Oliver Hardy.
The key to figuring out these "Trip" films, I think, is determining what's real and what isn't - as you might imagine, anything that feels like a "reality" show on TV is probably scripted to some degree, or edited to create the necessary drama or conflict. It's also not safe for celebrities to reveal too much about their personal lives, which is why LeBron James' family in "Space Jam: A New Legacy" was played by actors, there are a lot of nutcases out there who use the internet for more than just watching movies, they dig into the personal lives of celebrities and if they're not right in the head, terrible things could happen. All you have to do here is look up the two stars on Wikipedia, and you'll see that their spouses and exes in real life have different names than the ones seen in the film. (Yes, yes, I know that I technically did just invade their privacy, but I did it for edification only, so I can better understand the movie, what's real and what is not...)
So the comedy bits are real, the impressions are funny, and anything about the actors' personal lives here is not, that comes from the director giving them story beats and plot points, like the fictional Steve Coogan being concerned that his father is in ill health, or Rob asking his wife to come and meet them in Ithaca, the last stop on their journey, where they start in Troy (or where Troy used to be, in Turkey) and take the same route taken by Odysseus (or Ulysses, if you prefer) on his way home from the Trojan War. Umm, more or less, that is, because Odysseus really took the LONG way home, traveling to Africa and going around the whole Mediterranean clockwise, where he could have made it home sooner, if he'd just gone anti-clockwise. It took him ten years when all was said and done (do you think maybe he just didn't WANT to go straight home?) and Steve and Rob only have like six days, of course they have modern things like travel agents and online hotel reservations, and assistants back in the UK, which of course Odysseus just didn't have. Or GPS for that matter, I think he really could have used that.
Well, bottom line, if you just can't hear enough jokes about the Isle of Lesbos, or if you've ever wondered what Alexander the Great would say if he were played by Ray Winstone, then this film is right up your alley. I think I'm a bit burned out on this format, maybe four films in this series was just one too many. But I can probably say the same thing about the "Indiana Jones" or the "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchises, that the most recent film was perhaps one too many. The box office would seem to suggest this as well, because "The Trip to Greece" earned only $8,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and only $259,000 worldwide.
Also starring Rob Brydon (last seen in "Tristram Shandy"), Claire Keelan (ditto), Rebecca Johnson (last seen in "The Trip to Spain"), Marta Barrio (ditto), Tim Leach (ditto), Tessa Walker (ditto), Cordelia Bugeja, Justin Edwards (last seen in "Empire of Light"), Richard Clews, Harry Tayler (last seen in "Greed"), Kareem Alkabbani (ditto), Soraya Mahalia Häfner.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Syrian refugees
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