The Trip to Spain

As is the case with the previously released trips ('The Trip', 2010 and 'The Trip to Italy', 2014) with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, so it is with 'The Trip to Spain' that it does not really play out as a film but rather an extended TV show. Which it is. Although actually shortened and combined from the six episodes of the last (third) series.

What kind of show exactly is 'The Trip' itself, is quite difficult to determine because although the trips are partly to do with reviewing food, a minuscule amount of comments made on the subject actually reach the viewer. Same is with visiting different locations, though at least in that aspect there are small bits of useful information pointed out every now and again. Though it's hardly ever an extensive introduction to the place visited. It's not a documentary even though it might come across as such. Calling it a talk show wouldn't be quite right either. In a way it is a different version of 'Top Gear' with just as beautiful camera work but less information and unfortunately - as it is listed under comedy - jokes.

Steve and Rob get on with their usual antics which obviously include a lot of impressions, but it gets old at some point and I truly don't want the hear either of them say: "I told you to blow the bloody doors off" and then try to settle on the age of the voice etc. It's the constant competition between the two who's better at impressions which includes mimicking mainly just one sentence over and over and over and over and over and over again. Which brings me the horrific flashbacks from watching 'Dude Where's My Car' as a teen and not being amused. However, I can respect, accept and enjoy repetition (British comic Stuart Lee is a great example), but it has to serve a purpose. At the moment were not watching a film, ahem, TV show. We're watching to guys rehearsing for it. Despite that I'm not calling the show unfunny. No, far from it. 'The Trip to Spain' is still humorous. Just not necessarily laughing out loud funny. It has it's better moments though.

So basically, if you've enjoyed the previous films or TV series, you can probably appreciate this one as well, if not, then there's nothing that will convince you otherwise. It has its entertainment value but not for everyone. If I had enough money to go out for even one meal like in the film with a friend, I would've done that instead and had much more fun. But on the other hand perhaps wouldn't have learned all I know about the invasion of Spain by Roger Moors.

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love." Ernest Hemingway

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have done this drill before from reviewing restaurants in the UK, Italy, and now Spain in The Trip to Spain. As always the two for the road, buddy adventure is more entertaining than the meals, though the meals play even less of a role in this iteration.

The two incomparable improvisers, guided for the third time by director Michael Winterbottom, travel by Range Rover to some of Spain's finest restaurants, with mouth-watering tapas casually served while they serve you personal barbs and impersonations so spot on you could close your eyes and swear the original was having dinner.

Especially notable are their riffs on James Bond, emphasizing the eccentric voices of Sean Connery and Roger Moore. The sequence involving Moore's Bond and an enemy having dinner together is especially amusing. In any case, both actors are world class imitators culminating in a memorable take on "Tony Hopkins."

The road trip has numerous high angle, helicopter and drone shots capturing the rolling Spanish countryside, mountain top restaurants, and Western-like landscapes enjoyable enough but downright fulfilling when accompanied by the wickedly funny banter between the old buddies. They both are not shy about picking on the conceits and foibles of their friend, and both give as well as they can take.

For some dramatic heft, Coogan is vulnerable at reaching 50 without a girlfriend or agent, and so distanced from his son as to be painful,. Even writing about his teenage years in Spain can't shake the melancholy. Enter the shot of the two buddies dressed as Quixote and Panza, no better choice to represent Coogan's drifting and Brydon's middle-aged responsibilities.

All this is to say that the lives of these two gifted actors and improvisers are not as superficial as the grand food and sights would lead us to believe. And after all, we need to be prepared for the hilarious and provocative last shot.

What is it? you ask. Take the trip and find out. It will be one of the best tours of your cinematic life, and you'll run to Netflix to see the other two. I guarantee it.

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is the third movie in a series of road trips by funny man Steve Coogan and his sidekick Rob Brydon. I still recall the second movie, "The Trip to Italy," which shares the same premise: two semi-famous British entertainers eat their way through a country while entertaining each other with scripted and improvisational banter and comedy. "The Trip to Spain" echoes the last movie except the scenes are in Spain and the language being spoken is Spanish.

It seems to me that there's a lot more involvement with people playing Coogan's and Brydon's families and love interests in this third movie and for me, this pierces the bubble of the movie's conceit. Coogan calls his married lover in New York and a camera just happens to be there to capture her end of the call? If that part isn't unscripted, then the whole movie is scripted with perhaps some improvisation. So when Coogan and Brydon entertain each other with endless facts about the towns they're visiting, they're not being erudite, they're reciting scripted lines. Some of the overlong imitations of Marlon Brando, Mick Jagger, Sean Connery, and particularly Roger Moore--those are likely to be improvisational.

In all, this is a pleasant movie and the Spanish scenery and architecture steal the show and are probably worth the price of admission alone. The bit about food and reviewing restaurants seems muted and subdued in this film compared to the last one.

The ending however, deserves to live on the cutting room floor. (Again, that's my opinion.) I'll leave it to you to decide on that one.

If you've come along for the other "Trips" with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, you clearly know what you're in for and what you want out of "The Trip to Spain," the third installment of the British TV mini-series cut into a feature-length film about two middle-aged friends on a food tour for a magazine.

"Spain" does not mess with the formula. We get all the impersonations, stunning vistas, food porn, literature/poetry references, etc. that we signed up for. The only thing that has changed are where these fictional versions of Steve and Rob are in terms of life stage and how they're dealing with their newly entered 50s in both their careers and personal lives.

If anything, the chemistry between Coogan and Brydon (and director Michael Winterbottom) has only gotten stronger. They're able to devise hilarious bits on the fly even more naturally than before. Unlike "The Trip" and "The Trip to Italy," almost no drama unfolds during the course of the film. Steve and Rob's never-ending game of one-upsmanship is what largely keeps this film afloat, though they each do deal independently with struggles regarding love and family.

As such, "Spain" ends up filling in the portraits of these two friends and their lives with more details, as if the painting was sketched out in "The Trip" and started to be filled in in "Italy." With just about everything else in this movie remaining a constant, we're able to spend more time looking more closely at those details - and by the same token, Winterbottom can add more nuance. The depiction of Steve as Don Quixote and Rob as Sancho Panza creates a solid focal point to better examine these characters, who it turns out are quite like their respective Cervantes creations.

So little about "The Trip" films could be considered mainstream that it feels odd to describe them as cinematic comfort food, but to the set of tastes that have taken to them so far, they are exactly that. The sense of humor, their dynamic and Winterbottom's naturalist approach are so reliable that even with minimal changes from film to film, the series ages well. "Italy" initially felt like a retread, but "Spain" feels like an improvement just by virtue of time, all of its elements and flavors improving and congealing with patience and experience.

All this makes the film's twist ending that much more unexpected. Suddenly there's a hint of plot continuity and it's as though we have no idea what to do with it. How the series proceeds will mean everything, but for now it's just a dash of mystery in an otherwise familiar and enjoyable film.

~Steven C

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"The Trip to Spain" is the third in the series of 'culinery travelogue' TV programmes by Steve Coogan ("Philomena") and Rob Brydon ("Gavin and Stacey"). The pair travel by car through Spain sampling the local delicacies while constantly trying to self-salve their fragile egos and trying to out-do each other with comedy spiel. This is of course not a "documentary" as such, since the pair are playing up to their extreme alter-egos (presumably!) of what people expect them to be like. Actors playing their family, agents, etc. call them at various points on the trip to either pour oil on troubled waters or (more often) add fuel to the fire.

The six original half hour TV episodes have been edited down into a feature length journey. And this is part of the problem. Repetition that can be forgiven and forgotten about when you see an episode every week, but can become tiresome when forced on you as a continuous stream.

In this case the repetitive content delivered by Coogan and Brydon are their (normally very good) impersonations of famous stars (most of which it has to be said are British so won't resonate with a non-UK audience). Roger Moore in particular gets trotted out INTERMINABLY and while some of it is extremely funny - an exchange between Moore as Bond and Scaramanga had me snorting tea out of my nose - it all gets too much by the end.

Appearing to recognise this need for more variety, additional characters from Steve's team join them for a part of their trip - Emma (Clare Keelan) and Yolanda (Marta Barrio). Unfortunately, the additions are just plain dull: they just sit alongside Coogan and Brydon and laugh at their impressions, adding nothing. Now if they had been a couple of good female impersonators, like Ronni Ancona and Jan Ravens, that could act as a foil to the male duo, THAT would have been entertaining.

The film also suffers from "Top Gear Challenge" disease. The problem with filming a car journey through Spain is that you know there are not twenty film crews deployed along the route to do the filming.... all of the cameras are carefully set up in advance with someone on a walkie-talkie saying "OK, Steve - coffee down, we're ready for you to drive over the hill now". So something that should feel natural and documentary-like feels 100% the opposite.

So... if you like Coogan and Brydon, and especially if you liked their Northern England and Italy "trips", then you will get more laughs out of this one. But I think the concoction needs to be put through the blender and re-heated before it comes out for a fourth outing.

(For the full graphical review, please visit bob-the-movie-man.com).