While I got a few laughs and genuinely enjoyed significant chunks of "The Trip to Italy", I don't feel like I can give it a good rating. Many of the film's troubles stem from the method of its construction. It is edited from a six episode season of a television series, which totaled about 180 minutes. For the film, this was cut down to 108. It's also the sequel to a 2010 film titled simply "The Trip", which was similarly edited from the show's first season. While I can't speak to the quality of that film (I wasn't aware it even existed until after I'd seen this one), this sequel is not well served by the television to film transposition.
The film gets incredibly repetitious very quickly. It follows a road trip through Italy with Steve Coogan (who I'm familiar with) and Rob Brydon (who I'm not) playing fictional versions of themselves as they dine at different restaurants and see the sights. Much of the film was apparently improvised by the two actors as they sit down to eat and riff on popular culture, liberally seasoning the conversation with imitations of the likes of Michael Caine, Roger Moore, and others. Their chemistry is great, and some of these moments are really funny. But then they go to another location and repeat the process. Over and over again. This was almost certainly more palatable when presented as an episodic television show. Getting a half hour weekly dose of improvised comedy in a new, beautiful location each week might have been fun. When presented as a film, however, it becomes a repetitious slog that I was ready to see end by around the halfway point. There were still jokes to be made, and I still sometimes laughed at them, but the film felt incredibly stagnant.
The attempts made to provide the film with a progressive through line were also weak. Coogan had an arc about trying to connect with his son, while Brydon got storylines where he cheated on his wife and auditioned for an American film. These were transparent attempts to inject some "plot" into the film, and they didn't really work. There also didn't seem to be a good reason for why the actors were playing versions of themselves. If you're going to do something like that, it should really add something to the film. In this case, they might as well have been purely fictional characters and the impact would have been the same.
The two lead actors are great talents, but this episodic mish mash can barely even be called a movie, its television roots are so glaringly present. Their comedy chops are the only reason for the "plus" I'm putting on my rating.
D+
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