Review of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020) by Guffrey — 25 Oct 2020

Subpar at best. As a non-political person, this movie was extremely partisan. What worked with the first movie was that Borat played the role of a man completely disconnected from American norms. He was unconsciously sexist, racist, and overall bigoted. It made for funny moments when he would pretend to unknowingly make fun of someone or act in a way one wouldn’t in this country. Also, the reactions to his character were real, and you could tell.

The sequel just doesn’t live up to the original, I’m afraid. It is extremely liberal and the character of Borat is pretty much entirely different from the original. Instead of being a lovable jackass, he’s a super-conscious talking head, which just doesn’t make for a fun comedy. Aside from that, a lot of this movie just felt scripted, as if all the reactions were written into the movie, not naturally delivered from unsuspecting citizens.

To top off the mediocrity, Borat tells the viewer to go and vote, which just felt like a spit in the face to the viewers’ intelligence.

In my honest opinion, the funniest media is politically neutral. That way, there isn’t a bias towards a certain party, and they are able to look at both sides equally and find flaws in both they parties can make jokes out of. Also, being unself-aware of one’s own bias makes the comedian look dumb and makes his work less effective.

There were spots in the movie where some of the magic of the original shined (the KKK costume at the CPAC comes to mind), but for the most part, it was just another propagandist comedy that can be tossed into the bunch of socially-conscious garbage Hollywood loves to churn out.

(PS, the score on this review wouldn’t have changed if this movie were making fun of the left instead of the right. The fact that this movie took a certain side isn’t what ruins it, it’s that it took a side at all.