Monday at the Movies - May 14, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, a trilogy concludes.

The Trip to Spain (2017)– After trips through Northern England and Italy, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are at it again in Michael Winterbottom’s third in the Trip trilogy, ostensibly reviewing restaurants but actually drinking in local culture and antagonizing each other in games of impressions and good-natured joshing. Three films in, The Trip to Spain shows some signs of wear, like a sauce that’s been on the pot a bit too long and is simmering a little thin. Where The Trip to Italy had a good laugh at the idea of just redoing the first film on the Italian peninsula, Spain feels more compulsory, intruded upon as it is by more constructed narratives (a subplot about Steve’s son) and a real head-scratcher of a conclusion that veers into weird satirical endlessness. The trip, though, has always been more the point of these movies than their destinations, and Spain does introduce a number of great bits, including a pit-stop amid a poor man’s Jurassic Park and an exceptionally apt James Bond reference apropos of Brydon’s preposterous choice of hat. The real stars of the film end up being, to the surprise of few, the impressions, chief among them Marlon Brando as the Spanish Inquisition by way of Python, a clapping Mick Jagger (who attempts his own Michael Caine impression), and Roger Moore, who on various occasions serves shellfish and narrates the history of the Spanish Moors as though they were his own family. A sort of “oh, this again” appearance by Yolanda the photographer does visualize the genius metaphor of Coogan as Don Quixote, with Brydon as his Sancho Panza, a gag that could have carried the film like Italy’s reference to The Godfather, Part II, but Spain doesn’t go there. Instead, it ends up somewhat less than the sum of its parts. I don’t anticipate (but would welcome) a fourth film to extend some of the matter of this film, but I do think that Coogan and Brydon are some of the most consistently funny comedians on film, even if this Trip seems less hysterical than the preceding two.

Sidebar: is this film the only time that the word “apotheosis” has been used as an insult? (Steve jeers that Rob’s “small man in a box” represents “the apotheosis of your career.”) A remarkable achievement in and of itself.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!