Although filmed two years after The Booze Cruise (2003), the story actually takes place more or less 8 months later, with the same team of writers and director guiding the characters through a treasure hunt that takes them into the British countryside, and concludes at a coastal resort.

Clive, Martin Clunes' character, has since left the old neighbourhood, while his daughter Chloe shares a flat while attending university. Her ex-fiance, Daniel (recast with Tom Bennett), is back for a short family visit, and has second thoughts about returning to France, since he may be the father of Chloe's imminent baby, although the child's poppa may also be the videographer Chloe shagged in the first teleplay.

With Clive gone from the mix (he was a rather dry, dull character instead of the intended charismatic snot), the writers and director have created business tycoon Marcus Foster (cold and slimy Ian Richardson), who joins the road trip with his own extraordinary contempt for the group.

The embedding of a more acidic snot plus the abusive Rob, forced to keep his trap shut, is supposed to add some conflict as Dave (figuratively) kisses Marcus' arrogant posterior in the hopes of being involved in a high-profile construction deal, and for a while it works until the characters spend their first night in a hotel, and that's about where the writers hit a rut, and throw in wacky hijinks that marginally elicit some chuckles before the group moves on with the contrived treasure hunt whose reward is rather muddy, if not insignificant.

Booze Cruise II is very light and airy, and seems tailored towards an older generation if not viewers preferring thinly stretched soap opera threads and comedic spurts – bland escapism that offends no one, nor takes any creative risks. Rob is still deliciously rude towards Maurice, but their bickering becomes secondary as Chloe's pregnancy reaches its finale, whereupon David is compelled to ask Chloe about the child's paternity. (Her reply is a morbidly maudlin speech for which writers Brian Leveson and Paul Minnett ought to be flogged.)

Rolled into the mounting melodrama is Rob's backseat rendezvous with the married hottie from the first film, which also swerves the film's light tone into a particularly odiferous melodrama when his infidelity and carousing results in a public excoriation from wife Leoni (recast with Amanda Abbington). Added is a blackmail scheme crafted by Maurice's wife Grace (Coronation Street's Anne Reid), and Booze Cruise II loses steam and substance.

It never wholly recovers, but amid the facile resolutions in the final reel are a few chuckles, but II lacks the gusto of the first and final teleplays which, largely free from active melodrama, basically follow the simple premise that men are basically idiots when they choose wander without their better halves in this great big world.

The Booze Cruise trio are available in widescreen (1.85:1) on Region 2 DVDs, whereas the Region 1 edition from BFS is apparently fullscreen (1.33:1), and each teleplay has been clunkily re-branded Cheers and Tears.

© 2008 Mark R. Hasan