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Entourage: critics attack 'hatefully unfunny' film
HBO spin-off movie Entourage, about a pack of Hollywood actors, prompts Twitter spat
The much-anticipated big-screen version of the hit HBO series Entourage has provoked a backlash from critics – and sparked a Twitter spat.
The movie, which opened in UK cinemas over the weekend, follows the fortunes of a group of actors in Hollywood. But it has been called "misogynistic", "shallow" and "hatefully unfunny" by some reviewers.
Billed as a comedy-drama, the Entourage film reunites the original TV cast, led by Adrian Grenier, as Vincent Chase, a movie star with a group of aspiring movie-business buddies. It also stars Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara ,Jeremy Piven and Emmanuelle Chriqui.
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The film picks up where the eighth season of the series left off when it ended in 2011. Vincent Chase has a new super agent, Ari Gold (Piven), and has decided to direct as well as star in a new movie that will also be Ari's first venture as studio chief.
In its heyday, the series was considered to be the ultimate male fantasy, depicting a gang of guys hanging out on superyachts and private jets, driving fast cars and dating models, says the BBC. But these themes, which recur in the movie, have frustrated many critics.
In the Huffington Post, Brandon Judell writes that the movie "appears to have been conceived by a gaggle of misogynistic, beer-chugging adolescent virgins who brag about getting laid".
Other critics agreed. Wendy Ide in The Times called it "braying, witless drivel", and Geoffrey MacNab in The Independent called it "crude and relentlessly chauvinistic".
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In the Daily Telegraph, Robbie Collin writes: "After eight successful if downward-spiralling seasons, the concept hasn't just run completely dry." Doug Ellin's feature-length spin-off "feels starkly and cynically exposed".
But the film's most vocal critic was Mark Kermode. In a review for Radio 5 Live, Kermode described the film as "utterly loathsome".
"Literally ten seconds into the film, I leaned to [fellow critic] James King and I whispered to him 'I hate this film'," he said.
He went on to describe it as a "pornographic, consumerist, hate-filled piece of propaganda" and a "foul, soul-sucking, horrible vacuum of vile emptiness".
Kermode also tweeted about a guest appearance in the film, saying: "When a cameo appearance by Piers Morgan isn't the very worst thing about your film, you're in trouble."
This prompted Morgan to fire back that his appearance was: "a part, not a cameo", adding that Kermode "rhymes with 'commode'".
Kermode responded in a Guardian article that Morgan's "Wildean witticism" was more entertaining than anything in the "hatefully unfunny" Entourage.
Audiences also appeared largely unimpressed with the film, which made a lacklustre $26m in the US. Takings in other territories have also been small.
