Lightning rarely strikes twice in life, even less frequently in the realm of comedies. And in the case of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” a sequel to his “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” mockumentary film about anti-Semitic Kazakhstani television personality Borat Sagdiyev, forget even thunder, as storm clouds barely form. Cohen captured lightning in a bottle with his hilariously scathing 2004 film, “Borat,” but ‘Subsequent Moviefilm’—seemingly rushed into theaters (ok streaming to Amazon) to influence the election or say something about the failings of America again—just has a few of the same flashes of electrically-charged hilarity. There’s the “introducing the monster in a horror film” problem too: the surprise and scare are out of the bag and the same phenomenon applies to “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (its full official title). The unpredictable OMG what-will-happen-next factor has vanished because the audience understands the formula.

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