Kevin and Perry Go Large review

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KEVIN AND PERRY GO LARGE

Kevin (Harry Enfield) is a prime example of that most feared and misunderstood species: the teenager. He is argumentative with his despairing Mum (Louisa Rix) and Dad (James Fleet), his hair hasn't caught a glimpse of shampoo or water in weeks, and his body constantly embarrasses him, becoming visibly over-excited at even the merest mention of sex.

Something of a babe magnet (he repels them faster than he can give chase), Kevin dreams of becoming a top club DJ and spends many happy hours in his room with best pal Perry (Kathy Burke) mixing thumping tracks like All I Want To Do Is Do It.

The two lads are over the moon when Kevin's parents offer them the chance of a holiday in the Mediterranean club capital - Ibiza. What could be better?

Sun, sea, sand, hordes of scantily clad lovelies and perhaps even a chance to spin their choons in one of the island's most happenin' nightspots.

Of course, there's one, small catch: Mum and Dad will be coming with them, as chaperones to make sure the boys behave themselves. As Kevin so eloquently puts it: "That's sooooooo unfair!" Subtlety has never been part of Enfield's vocabulary and with Kevin & Perry Go Large, he and co-writer David Cummings plumb new depths of crudeness in search of laughs.

Their film closely follows the American Pie template, balancing the boys' rather touching quest to have their proverbial cherries picked with a bewildering selection of gross-out gags. Almost every bodily fluid and function has a place in Kevin and Perry's misadventures, some ad nauseum.

Both writers flog their limited repertoire of gags to death. The running joke about Kevin and Perry suffering from erections at the most inopportune moments (realised using hydraulic cod-pieces) wears thin after the third of fourth instance but Enfield and Cummings reuse the situation again and again and again...

Or there's the sequence in which would-be babes Candice (Laura Fraser) and Gemma (Tabitha Wady) get ready for a night on the town, beautifying themselves by squeezing a few spots in front of the mirror. Two or three graphic explosions should have been more than suffice but the girls continue popping well into double figures, drenching the screen with pus and making the audience rue its decision to eat quite so much popcorn before the film began.