The film
premiered at
Leicester Square,
London, on 5 August 2014. In Australia it was distributed by
Roadshow Entertainment In its third week, it fell to second spot behind new release
Lucy. In its opening week in Australia, the film grossed $3.155 million in
Australian dollars, topping the box office and pushing
Guardians of the Galaxy into second place. It fell to second place in its second week, with
Guardians of the Galaxy returning to top spot. As of 12 October 2014, the film had made $55,652,783 in the United Kingdom, $6,598,273 in Australia, and $473,316 in New Zealand. On
Metacritic, the film has a 55/100 rating based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
United Kingdom Robbie Collin of
The Daily Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five, saying "Perhaps the biggest compliment you could pay the film, apart from that it's by and large hysterically funny, is that it is unmistakably film-like, with a smoothly arcing plot and gross-out moments staged with the verve and ceremony of an action-movie set-piece." In
The Guardian, Mike McCahill gave the film three stars. He found fault in its treatment of female characters, saying "Some of the abundant thought channelled into knob gags could have been diverted towards developing the boys' female counterparts beyond harpies and lust objects". Unlike Collin, he found
The Inbetweeners 2 to resemble a television show more than a film: "as with the first film, number 2 never quite shakes its resemblance to primetime E4, complete with ad-ready fadeouts and Walkabout interiors...couldn't the vehicles transporting them to the wider world display slightly more ambition?". Chris Hewitt of
Empire magazine gave the film four stars out of five, summing it up as "
The Fannytastic Four leave us on a poo-flecked, piss-soaked, sun-burned high that more than overcomes its familiar flaws to become a real contender for the year's funniest film. Four star wankers". A negative review came from Graham Young of the
Birmingham Mail, who found the film's humour to be repetitive: "Damon Beesley and Iain Morris have both directed this sequel which lacks an emotional arc to create momentum...Yes, it can be funny, and you’d have to be a prude not to laugh...But the endless, alliterative phrases for sex and countless in-your-face sight gags dilute the characters and turn the mood wearingly lewd. Like
Nick Frost's
The Cuban Fury [
sic] earlier this year,
The Inbetweeners 2 takes a funny premise – and then ruins it." Writing in
The Observer, Jonathan Romney gave the film two stars out of five, summing it up as "British TV comedy's favourite
Four Stooges take another holiday, resulting in fountainous poo, pee and puke, rampant
misogyny, 'ironic' rampant misogyny, rampant 'irony', and that old
Carry On staple, horror of sex (especially among the over-25s)". He however predicted that on the record of the first film,
The Inbetweeners 2 would be a financial success. In
Time Out, Tom Huddleston gave the film one star out of five, saying "‘The Inbetweeners 2’ is riddled with contempt: for its characters, for its audience and most notably for the entire female gender. That a film in 2014 can still get away with depicting all women as either dumb, hapless sluts or ball-busting harridans is frankly unbelievable."
Australia In Australia, Matthew Toomey, a film critic for
612 ABC Brisbane, gave
The Inbetweeners 2 a B+. He said "Don’t expect a deep, underlying narrative. This is just a bunch of horny teenagers doing really dumb things. To each their own... but I was entertained. First and foremost, it shocked me – and that’s not easy given how many movies I watch. It pushes the envelope a lot further than I expected and I'd highly recommend seeing the film in a packed cinema. The audience reactions would be hilarious." Louise Keller of Urban Cinefile wrote a mixed review, stating that the film takes a long time to "get going" due to a "silly establishment skit". However, she concluded that "there is genuine affection with which the filmmakers portray their characters and as a consequence, the level of offence is lessened to some degree". In the
Herald Sun, Leigh Paatsch gave the film one star. He criticised the casting, describing the main characters as "supposed to be aged about 20 [but] played by blokes who all look as if they're 30-plus, and carry on as if they’re not yet 10", and also found the film misogynistic, saying "the derogatory manner in which women are spoken of (and often depicted) is relentlessly, callously crass. Sometimes even hateful". A mixed review from Philippa Hawker of the
Sydney Morning Herald concluded "The Australian elements seem hastily inserted and incidental: the movie could have been set in any country that had a water park and a place to get lost. But as a hymn to male bonding, and an exploration of the comic possibilities of what happens when a turd hits a water slide,
The Inbetweeners 2 is a precisely crafted, assured piece of work".
Home media The Inbetweeners 2 was released on
DVD and
Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2014. A DVD edition also including the first film was released at the same time. The DVD featured two
audio commentaries, one with Morris and Beesley and the other by the four lead actors, in addition to a behind-the-scenes featurette,
deleted scenes, and a
blooper reel. The film's release on home media was sponsored by
STA Travel, who offered a prize of a holiday to the Australian state of
Queensland. ==Legacy==