Sacha Baron Cohen's new movies claims "Borat" was SO 2006. Well, Cohen, I have to ask why then it took you and three other men to come up with a story that is almost completely identical in plot structure and exactly identical in purpose to Borat?

I, for one, LOVE Borat. It's a hilarious character and the movie, while hit-and-miss for many people, was almost entirely "hit" for me. I won't deny that Bruno is funny, but it comes in spurts and feels like a cheap knockoff rather than something fresh. in fact, it got pretty stale after the first 30 minutes.

Bruno is a gay fashion espert ousted from his hit Austrian TV program, so he travels to Los Angeles to get famous. The satire here is at its best when Cohen is acting as gay as possible and we just watch what people do and say. It's sad, however, that much of what transpires feels much, much more scripted than Borat. While most of this film and some of Borat was indeed scripted, Bruno just feels it much more. Maybe that's because the situations and people involved are far too similar.

Case in point- Bruno has a partner/friend who ends up getting naked with him (just like in Borat), there's a scene where he purposely goes to a redneck-centric event (MMA fighting in this case, it was bullriding in Borat), and most of the underlying themes are strikingly similar to Borat. I suppose the purpose is to show how insensitive and spiteful Americans can be, or perhaps it's simply to just sit and laugh at middle America for it's "backwards" views. This only works if you have a very left-leaning bias or perhaps come from a foreign country.

However, the genius scenes are when Cohen stops leading people on with obviously suggestive questions and simply acts overtly gay. seeing people's reactions are seriously demented and hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing at these scenes. I especially enjoyed Westborough Baptist Church get its comeuppance. It's just not fresh or new enough and it doesn't have enough material. In fact, it's short enough and a good enough carbon copy that i almost feel like this could have been written and filmed in a month and added as a special feature on a deluxe edition of Borat.

It's a dirty shame, because some of the bits really are classic. it's just that most of it is forgettable or have lost any satirical sting its predecessor had.