The Inbetweeners Movie: About The Film

Summary

The Inbetweeners Movie is a 2011 British coming-of-age comedy film based on the E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, written by series creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris and directed by Ben Palmer. The film follows the misadventures of a group of teenage friends on holiday in Crete after the end of their final year at school together, and currently serves as an ending to the TV series. It stars Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison. The film was released on 19 August 2011 in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Box Office

On its first day of release, The Inbetweeners Movie grossed over £2.5 million in 409 cinemas, outperforming Cowboys & Aliens. The film then went on to set a new record for the most successful opening weekend ever achieved by a comedy film in the UK, overtaking Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and The Hangover Part II after earning £13,200,000. It retained its number 1 position in the UK film charts for 4 weeks and for 3 weeks in the Republic of Ireland, finally being overtaken by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on 16 September 2011. The film saw a limited theatrical releases in the United States on 7 September 2012 where it grossed $36,000, making its total box office revenue $88,025,781.

Home Media

On 12 December 2011, The Inbetweeners Movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the UK by 4DVD, with the latter version sold as a triple pack containing both formats along with a digital copy of the film. Both versions include a number of special features, such as a making-of documentary, footage from the film's London premiere, various deleted scenes, cast commentaries and a blooper reel. The Blu-ray Disc release also features an extended cut of the film that restores approximately four minutes of material omitted from the theatrical release, most notably an additional scene in which Will and Simon encounter a drunken Mr. Gilbert on a Malia stag weekend. These additions resulted in the extended cut being rated an 18, as opposed to the 15 rating of the theatrical release.
Following its appearance in UK stores, the DVD quickly became a major financial success. Within less than a week, the film became the third fastest-selling British home media release of 2011 after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, with approximately 575,000 copies sold in the first day of its release. By December 17, estimated sales reached one million, resulting in the film displacing the home media release of Paul as one of the five best-selling DVDs of the year in the UK.

Critical Reception

The Inbetweeners Movie received mostly positive reviews upon UK release in August 2011. However, following release in the US in September 2012 critical reaction was less favourable, with the film currently holding a 55% score on Rotten Tomatoes. At the website Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film received a mixed rating of 44/100 based on 36 reviews.^[7] Ian Freer of Empire Magazine gave the film four stars out of five, observing that "Like any holiday, it is episodic and suffers from repetition but this is gag-for-gag the funniest film of the summer and a fitting end to a much-loved series."^[8] Steve Rose of The Guardian gave the film three stars out of five, giving particular praise to Simon Bird's performance and arguing that the film "updates the teen summer holiday formula surprisingly entertainingly, considering it doesn't subvert it one iota and the formula was already done previously with Holiday on the Buses and Kevin & Perry Go Large among others."^[9] Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph also gave a positive assessment of the film, praising it as "an enormous hit, a Mamma Mia! for the Hangover demographic."^[10] Screen Daily, on the other hand, gave a mixed review, praising the performances of the main cast and proclaiming the film "Britain’s delayed riposte to American Pie," yet simultaneously arguing that it "can’t quite shake off its TV roots, and plot-wise, this is nothing the Greek tourist board would want to advertise."^[11] In contrast, Margaret Pomeranz from At the Movies called the characters "gormless" and said, "I’m giving this one star really generously".