The Trip to Spain

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Year Released: 2017
Rating: 2.0

This third installment of Winterbottom's Trip series takes actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (as "themselves") to EspaƱa, where they eat expensive (and presumably delicious) meals, do celebrity impressions (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Anthony Hopkins) and take passive-aggressive digs at each other. If you've seen the first two films, you should recognize the formula: (scripted? unscripted?) banter followed by forcefully injected pathos - Brydon, a family man, video conferences with his wife while Coogan, still single, chases a younger woman (Margo Stilley) and faces loneliness and a fear-of-aging (his son, he learns, is about to become a father ... making him Grandpa Coogan). Some may find it intermittently charming, but I think it's a little too narcissistic and familiar to be memorable ... though I must say their impressions of Mick Jagger and David Bowie are laugh-out-loud hilarious. Considering how this ends, I'm going to assume the next one is The Trip to an ISIS Torture Camp.