Hamlet 2 ( ** )

92 minutes

In theaters August 22, 2008

Rating: R, Comedy

Oddball comedies live on the border between funny-haha and funny-peculiar. It's always a question of which side of that border they spend more time on.

Hamlet 2 is an oddball comedy that sounds funnier than it plays, and thus has us staring at it dumbfounded nearly as often as we're smiling or laughing. It's about an eccentric high school drama teacher who writes and stages a sequel to Shakespeare's acknowledged greatest tragedy -- tricky business indeed when you consider that most of the major characters in Hamlet met their demise during the original play. Oh, well, there's always the time machine wrinkle.

Steve Coogan stars as Dana Marschz, a failed actor and recovering alcoholic now teaching at West Mesa High School in Tucson, Arizona (where, as he says, "dreams go to die"), still in search of any legitimate talent that he might actually have.

His life is falling apart: his wife, played by Catherine Keener, seems to be taking more interest in their nearly silent boarder (David Arquette) than in her infertile husband; Dana's plays, based on mainstream movies, continue to be scathingly panned by the school paper's drama critic, a ninth grader; and now the department in which he teaches is about to disappear as arts funding has dried up.

His dilemma, then: To be or not to be...brave. He opts for the former and decides to concoct a politically incorrect musical followup to the English language's most lauded play, hoping that its fabulousness will somehow inspire additional funding and save the school's theater program.

About this, as one item among many, he is sadly mistaken.

As word of the outrageous, anything-goes production (Exhibit A: the musical number, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus") gets out, members of the local community strenuously oppose the material and the event. The writer/producer/director/star does get some support. From Elisabeth Shue, who plays...well, Elisabeth Shue, here as the Hollywood actress who has abandoned the biz and become a school nurse. And from a strangely prejudiced ACLU attorney played by Amy Poehler.

But everyone else seems to be against him, except for his students, whom he recruits for the cast.

Director and co-writer Andrew Fleming (Nancy Drew, The In-Laws) certainly, merrily sends up the inspirational-teacher genre (Dana's plays include stage versions of Dead Pets Society and Mr. Holland's Opus), but he's even more interested in spoofing not only repressive tendencies in Middle America, but the pretensions and predilections of the artistic temperament itself.

The film is droll to a fault and has fun challenging our perceptions about good and bad taste. But the climactic show-within-a-movie is a distinct letdown after a lengthy buildup to it, as if it had not been been sufficiently thought through or developed. It should offer the kick of, say, the "Springtime for Hitler" number in The Producers, because it's just as crucial to the narrative. But it doesn't.

Coogan is a unique talent, but he's given a bit too much rope by director Fleming, while the rest of the talented supporting cast remain slightly underemployed.

There are laughs to be had, to be sure. But far too often we find our chuckles turning into stares, as if at a gaper delay on the highway.

Hamlet 2 is an off-the-wall, hit-or-miss omelette. The climactic play's the thing, all right, just not quite the hilarious thing we hoped for.