The Trip to Spain (2017)

(On Cable TV, August 2020) If you’ve seen The Trip or The Trip to Italy, you know what to expect from The Trip to Spain… mostly. Clearly, it’s still about Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, playing fictionalized versions of themselves, travelling, eating, impersonating and bickering throughout a few days of Spanish tourism. It’s exactly what they did in the previous two instalments, and it’s about as good and amusing as it was – provided that you have a tolerance for the same. The formula survives another bout pretty well: the scenery is usually magnificent, the food looks great, Coogan and Brydon each go over-the-top with funny impersonations, and the film’s dips into drama once again take the form of the two middle-aged men working out their insecurities and small-scale personal crises. The most distinctive element for the film involves a running theme about Don Quixote and Pancho Villa, leading to an ending that struck me as overdramatic. [November 2024: …and isn’t really followed up in the fourth-and-final instalment The Trip to Greece.] Still, The Trip to Spain is rather good fun in a comfortable way: If you like the shtick, take a look, and if you don’t, then don’t.