First Borat 2 Reviews Have Arrived, Is It Worthy of a High-Five?

The Borat 2 reviews have landed. It’s been 14 years since we’ve seen the iconic Sacha Baron Cohen character on the big screen, and many have wondered if his schtick still works in 2020. The movie, which is officially titled, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, finds our main character as too famous to walk around America, so he needs a disguise and the help of his 15-year old daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova). There are NO Spoilers for Borat 2 below.

One of the main points spread across a series of Borat 2 reviews is that American culture seems to have caught up to Sacha Baron Cohen’s fictional character. A.V. Club’s Jesse Hassenger says the movie “is frequently funny and occasionally pointed, more than enough to recommend it as a comedy,” she goes on to note, “It’s also another instance where doing things as they’ve always been done no longer feels like quite enough. The prejudices Baron Cohen exposes have become too fond of exposing themselves.” In other words, Borat’s victims seem even more willing to show their true feelings this time around.

RELATED: Sacha Baron Cohen Believes Borat 2 Co-Star Maria Bakalova Deserves an Oscars Nomination

Much of the Borat 2 reviews are positive. CInemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg says, “Of course, one of Hollywood’s sequel rules is that follow-ups have to ‘go bigger,’ and Borat 2 follows protocol by making some audacious swings that hit spectacularly.” The addition of Maria Bakalova’s Tutar has been praised by practically everybody who has seen the highly anticipated sequel. You can read what Vanity Fair’s Sonia Saraiya had to say about Bakalova’s performance below.

“Borat’s frattiest fans might despair of having a girl in their clubhouse, but Bakalova is a crucial and excellent addition to the Borat schtick. She gives Cohen a shred more credibility for saying the terribly misogynist things he does-and as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm capitalizes on multiple times, offers the filmmakers twice as much access for getting their gotchas.”

While the majority of the Borat 2 reviews seem to lean more to the positive, there are a few critics who think Sacha Baron Cohen could have come up with a better way to deliver his message. This is a criticism that the comedian has seen a lot over the course of his career. The Hollywood Reporter’s John DeFore believes that what Cohen pulled off in Borat 2 is actually part of the problem in America. DeFore explains.

“America is sick, and hurting, and angry and misinformed. If Sacha Baron Cohen were to put away the latex prosthetics, dumb accents and hairpieces, he might find a new, better way to show us our reflection – and to make us look, instead of just laughing at our neighbors’ most awkward moments.”

Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy is divisive and it’s not for everybody, which should be assessed before attempting to watch Borat 2. For the people who don’t enjoy his style of comedy, the sequel will likely not be a good fit. However, for fans of Cohen, it seems to be considered a homerun for comedy when we could all use a good laugh. You can head over to Amazon Prime to stream Borat 2 this Friday, October 23rd.

Topics: Borat 2, Borat

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