XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
Siflutter
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
popcorninhell
The Trip to Italy is a sequel to the little known, little seen 2010 film The Trip, which in itself is a highlight reel of a little known, little seen BBC miniseries of the same name. Each reiteration of this franchise, I guess you could call it, feels like the rotating lenses of a microscope, filling in more detail while getting ever smaller in scope and appeal. Who exactly is this movie for? I'm not quite sure but whoever is on its wavelength will probably have a ball.The Trip to Italy revisits Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as they are once again conscripted by the London Observer to eat at and review multiple restaurants. This time instead of driving through the foggy moors of Northern England, the duo drive their rented Mini Cooper through the sunny coasts of Italy. While doing so they once again trade witty repartee, relight professional rivalries and whip out their best Michael Caine impressions.Its basically the same setup as the first only the location and power dynamic between our two leads is a bit more interesting. Coogan's star seems to have taken a dip since the cancellation of his American TV series. Meanwhile the less misanthropic Brydon is being courted by director Michael Mann for a billed part in a crime drama. Insecurities and the specter of aging into obsolescence abounds in this sequel, and the Italian countryside and tales of the Romantics serve beautifully as a stark juxtaposition.Director Michael Winterbottom takes every opportunity to indulge in the sun and scenic poetry of Italy. As the characters retrace the steps of the romantics, Winterbottom takes delight in lifting visual cues from mainstay international cinema such as the bumpy road trips of Il Sorpasso (1962), the luxurious schooners of Purple Noon (1960) and the general feeling of ennui from La Dolce Vita (1960). As the film wears on, the actors become entrenched in a background literally alive with history, unable to make their pithy comments take you out of the beauty (though it's not for lack of trying.Yet the same things that bogged down The Trip from being the best version of itself are still purposely present in Trip to Italy. There are the same insufferably self-centered characters, the same conversations and improvisational impressions, the same inattention to the freaking food! Seriously, I realize that oafish behavior set against the truly beautiful is partially the point but how do you NOT make Italian food the center of attention? Thankfully the two surly actors have much more to interact with. Actresses Marta Barrio and Rosie Fellner actually show up to dinner instead of being relegated to bits of cellphone asides. Steve's son (as played by Timothy Leach) shows up as well allowing us to see how two middle-aged men in a perpetual existential crises handle being around a child for a few minutes.Overall Trip to Italy is in my mind a smidgen better than its predecessor and only because it trades temperate gloom for Mediterranean sunniness. But if you're the type who finds the fields, fog and verdant bluffs of England more appealing then the opposite might be true for you. Regardless, your ability to take this trilogy (so far) is wholly dependent on your ability to stomach two actors winging-it while sitting across from one another. I personally found my patience eroding by the minute.
bigverybadtom
Two British television stars take a drive through Italy for a magazine article, and one of them gets the chance to have a major role in an American movie about the mob. Presumably this is all fiction, because it did originally seem to be a straight travelogue...until you hear how weird the initial conversation gets. You see fancy meals being prepared and eaten, the pair going to posh hotels, pictures of beautiful scenery, many references to Byron, Shelley, and other writers of that era...and then you realize the locations of the hotels and restaurants in the movie are never identified.There is no real plot to the movie, which has a lot of chatter between the two leads, as well as their (fictional?) families. And much of that involves impersonations of various British actors. Mildly entertaining, but the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.
jimparrett
After laughing along with Brydon and Coogan savaging their own vanities and all of life around them, I found some of the reviews here to be more comical than the film. It's as if "The Trip to Italy" totally escapes them, probably much to the two main actors' amusement. The beauty of the ridiculous and sometimes lame impressions belies that the two are not trying to be serious travel/food hosts but two comics riffing on the idiocy of the business they are in .. and much more. This is satire, not some boring Anthony Bourdain exploration of food and culture. It's two goofy guys making fun of themselves. That so many people miss that simple point boggles my mind.
Aktham Tashtush
So Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon ,generally are really funny .. but the movie seems to have missing something ,, there's a leakage !! i don't know maybe the script was a bit off !!! unorganized ... or maybe it was meant to be like this "spontaneous" . the impersonating is okay even though more than half of the characters i have no idea who they were . i supposed it was to be having more comedy and some funny bits but honestly the only two times that i cracked a good laugh in the movie was when they started talking about the Kumquat :D and when Rob was talking to the body in the glass box in Pompeii ... gosh that was Hilarious :D other than that it was just like watching two guys blabbing in the streets of Italy :P i mean if they were speaking Italian i really wouldn't notice any change in the movie.
