The biggest issue is just the narrative! Example, Will bumps into a girl by accident within a few hours of travelling round the world and it was s girl he went to school with?! Jays dads brother is Australian?!? Jay doesn't seem surprised to see his 3 mates from the otherside of the world?! Has the feel of a first draftDialogue is quite funny, the only positive

Taking a break from school and traveling relinquished a nerdy college trio from social ostracism! The frugal reprieve down-under intertwined adventure and romance with satire and physical even grotesque comedy. Two cultures melded in the exotic subtropic paradise of Australia. The Aussie natives toyed with the naive American nerds' puerile ambitions. Persistence paid off as the sparks began to fly but not without comedic trials and tribulations. Outlandish failures hampered the wooing wanderers along their journey, yet these undaunted travelers persevered in discovering friendship. There was ample situational irony for prognostic movie buffs yet sufficiently familiar characters for everyday audiences.

With The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) storming to box-office and critical success, it was never going to be the last time we saw Will (Simon Bird), Jay (James Buckley), Neil (Blake Harrison) and Simon (Joe Thomas) on the big screen. You would expect the sequel to make things bigger and better, but while number 2 certainly feels more 'film-y' than its predecessor, things are kept relatively low-key here. While it thankfully resists any urge to throw in a wild plot and favours something more grounded (the boys are so lovable because they're relatable), it basically repeats the same story as their disastrous holiday to Crete. The destination this time around is Australia.With Will experiencing unhappiness at University (his house-mates demonstrate their attitudes towards him with a brilliantly worked gag), Simon struggling to deal with his bunny-boiling girlfriend Lucy (Tamla Kari), and Neil doing very little at all, the three decide to join Jay back-packing in Australia. Jay claims to be a top nightclub DJ, living in a mansion with supermodels who wake him every morning with a blow job. He is actually working as a toilet attendant, and is staying in a tent outside his uncle's house. Simon is convinced by old school friend Katie (Emily Berrington) to join her and her backpacking mates to see the 'real side of Australia', naturally with a detour to a water park, and the four tag along where embarrassment and uncomfortable sexual adventures await them.While Australia is vast and beautiful, we see very little of it here, favouring youth hostels and tourist hotspots that, if anything, makes it look like were watching a feature-length episode on E4. The cast is made up is mainly Britons, and the only main Australian character we meet is Jay's 'shrimp on the barbie' stereotype uncle. The female characters also are resigned to roles of tease and psychopathic harpy, as opposed to the well-rounded female foursome we met in the first movie. Although there's a couple of hilarious set-pieces - s**t in the face is always a winner - this just isn't as funny as it should be, with more focus on pushing the boundaries of gross-out humour rather than developing the odd relationship between these best friends who have very little in common. Series creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris and the main cast have all said that this is it for The Inbeweeners, but I'm sure, despite the mediocrity this time around, they'll be back on our screens at some point in the future.

The camera swoops through grey clouds, flashing with lightning. Ominous throbbing orchestral music plays as jagged, archaic titles float into view and are blasted apart. We pan over a suspension bridge towards three cloaked figures walking through a forest. An owl hoots. A full moon. A raised finger, pointing towards the skyline. Have I wandered into the latest Harry Potter film?No, of course not. Harry Potter ended years ago; that's the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and we're watching The Inbetweeners 2 for another round with our favourite hapless teens. Simon (Joe Thomas) and Neil (Blake Harrison) have come to visit Will (Simon Bird) at university, and quickly find him alone and snubbed by his peers.It's a marvel that the first minute presents us with this sequence, and before five minutes are out, we're treated to another (presumably expensive) fantasy wherein renowned fabricator Jay (James Buckley) outlines the details of his fabulous life in Australia, where he is spending a gap year.We see everything the average Brit would imagine of the land Down Under: beaches, bikinis, cricket, boomerangs, surfboards, Sydney nightclubs, kangaroos & koalas, 'Strayan slang (bonzer, rooting); allusions to celebrities from Kylie & Dannii Minogue all the way to Steve Irwin, via Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman; served up with the crass sexual humour that typifies the bawdier end of the Inbetweeners spectrum.It screams: "Here we are, we're back, we've got a bigger budget, and this time, we're going to Australia!" Love it or loathe it, you know what you're going to get (The film's tagline: "Soz, Oz." is an astounding five letters of witty brevity) and they're fully aware they don't have to impress anyone who isn't already a fan. Okay, it's not quite as good as the first film, and nowhere near as original as the TV series, but I'm always going to be somewhat sympathetic to this franchise*.I've been with The Inbetweeners since the beginning, when as a sixth former myself I laughed my head off at the antics of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil, as they muddled through a uniquely British adolescence that we could all see reflections of ourselves in. Maybe I didn't watch the first broadcast of the first episode, but I duly caught up on 4oD and eagerly anticipated the second and third series.The reset button has been pressed again as the boys' girlfriends have ditched them in the interim (with series creators and writers/directors Damon Beesley & Iain Morris tearing up the neat little package with which they ended the last film). We all want our characters to grow as people, but in the case of The Inbetweeners, not too much. But they're not all forgotten: Simon's still hitched, though his girlfriend has become disturbingly obsessive, and Jay's fruitless pursuit of his ex, Jane, turns out to be the whole reason he's gone to Australia.The best gags are at travelling in general, particularly the distinction between 'travellers' and 'tourists' made by pretentious, faux-spiritual backpackers, 90% of who seem to be Australian the world over (when they're not from British public schools like Will's new love interest, Emily). This culminates in a cringe worthy, but somehow brilliant campfire guitar performance by Will as he tries to fit in with this world, followed by a battering diatribe to the group when he realises he doesn't.Some of the humour, especially that involving excrement, is fairly lowbrow, but The Inbetweeners has always juggled teenage vulgarity with more nuanced shades of friendship and heartbreak, and it's rather poignant to watch the four friends, who we've shared three TV series and almost two films with, holding hands as they dehydrate in the Australian outback after another ill-conceived and impulsive adventure. And there's just enough room for a bit of toilet humour here, too.Is the end nigh? For these characters, probably so; some of the actors are in their thirties now, and no longer 'inbetween' anything. But we can still live vicariously through Fresh Meat and Friday Night Dinner.