Eyjafjallajökull

I was expecting a funny road movie. The ridiculous title which I suspect no one outside of Iceland can pronounce or remember is a red flag. Dany Boon was great in his earlier films Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and Rien a Declarer. Those were relatively funny movies.

This flick is not funny. Also the story line doesn't make sense. Example:with mass transit what it is in Europe why would the main character rent a a Porsch for 4000 euros (the only car available)when he could have easily gotten to the wedding by train?

The movie is composed of a series of arguments, ambushes and intrigues between Dany and his ex-wife. All rather humorless,irritating and silly. None of the wit of a Neil Simon script nor the bite of Edward Albee's George and Martha in ...Virginia Woolf. I guess I could have missed a good line or two because I have to admit I did doze off a while. If you have 90 minutes to burn and absolutely nothing else to do go ahead and watch it.

It's interesting that a volcano who went off a couple of years ago, is responsible for a road movie. But we can see that this sort of makes sense. To a degree that is, because we are getting railroaded early on. There is so much hate between the two characters, that any kind of consolation does not make sense at all. History between them or not, circumstances and events or not.

Still, if you do not care about that, there are a lot of funny situations (and one very crude religious "skit", if you want to call it that). Other than that, we get animal abuse, jokes that are so low, they might just fly under your radar, flying and "crashing" for the sake of it and other crazy stunts. Your sense of humor might be up to par with it, but we've seen many better films from France (with and without the always likable Mr. Boon, even though his character here isn't that nice) ...

I don't get the negative reviews. Granted, the humour is crude - but it is precisely it being over the top that makes it so great. I haven't laughed like that in a long time! It is very well written: all the seemingly insignifigant little elements turn out to have its comedic purpose sooner or later. Brilliant if you like this kind of brutal humour.

Generally, I am someone who judges movie fairly. But this is excruciatingly hard, here.

Do you like watching a mediocre, worthless, unpleasant movie about a dislikable couple that goes on an unrealistic trip together, hurting each other verbally and physically, with bad and predictable humor?

On top of that, with sub-par actors?

The movie is ironically called after a natural disaster, which is funny, because itself is a cinematographic disaster.

French movies can be breathtakingly good. But this movie is an insult to french filmmaking.

Not even the cinematography of the Balkan scenery could have saved this movie

Definitely not recommended.

Who is editing these film descriptions to allow such an idiotic statement? We almost did not watch this movie because of the false description of the subject.

This is a fun road movie, with lots of capers. A divorced, warring couple are headed to Greece for the marriage of their daughter. Though traveling on their own, they inevitably bump into one another.

Their bickering though amusing, is not always humorous, as it hits home to how badly people can devolve in the treatment of one another. But on the whole the films is a series of mishaps, bantering, betrayals, reconciliations, all along a madcap road trip.

The first obstacle which arises is the eruption of the volcano in Finland which causes planes to be grounded in Europe, and their plane, on the way to Athens, has to land in Germany. Luckily they can rent a Porsche for 4 thousand Euros, but the Porsche has a mishap and the couple meet up with all kinds of characters, ride a variety of vehicles, not all with wheels on the ground.

The film kept our attention and was entertaining as well as informative with its barbs at the human condition, as comedies are meant to do. If you like road films, and light hearted, intelligent, if not at times absurd, story, you will have fun with this as we did.