BRUNO (Cert 18, 78 mins)

Universal Pictures (UK), Comedy.

DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, Clifford Banagale.

SACHA BARON COHEN’S follow-up to the smash hit Borat follows a similar template, poking fun at celebrities and American culture.

However, whereas the central protagonist of Borat was a lovable innocent abroad – a naive Kazakhstani journalist travelling the US – gay Austrian fashionista Bruno is a crass, insolent media maniac who needs to be taken down a peg or five.

Disappointingly, only once in the film does he get his come-uppance, when he visits a swingers’ party and a pneumatic blonde whips him with a belt. Bruno is a flamboyant gay stereotype writ loud and crude, and we frequently feel grubby watching the character’s antics such as when he visits a medium to contact the ghost of Milli from disgraced 1980s pop group Milli Vanilli or an X-rated montage of bedroom scenes with pygmy flight-attendant boyfriend Diesel (Banagale).

Occasionally Cohen hits his mark. Bruno’s guest spot on Today With Richard Bey, a confessional in the style of Jeremy Kyle, warrants a few chuckles, as does a ham-fisted attempt to bring peace to the Middle East. “You are confusing Hamas and hummus I believe,” observes one beleaguered participant.

The crowning glory is the audition for a children’s fashion shoot. “Is your baby fine with lit phosphorous?” he asks one parent deadpan before confirming with another that her daughter would be prepared to undergo liposuction. A scene involving LaToya Jackson, cut in light of the King of Pop’s death, is available here as a deleted scene.

Rating: **

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 (Cert PG, 100 mins)

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Family/Action/Comedy/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/DVD Box Set £22.99/Blu-ray £28.99/Blu-ray Box Set £39.99

Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Mizuo Peck, Bill Hader, Christopher Guest, John Benthal, Alain Chabat.

SECURITY guard Larry Daley (Stiller) has left behind his old job at New York City’s famed Museum Of Natural History to front his own company, which has just launched a glow-in-the-dark torch.

Returning to his old haunt, Larry is distraught to learn from Dr McPhee (Gervais – inset) that the old exhibits are being replaced by state-of-the-art holographic technology, condemning cowboy Jed (Wilson), Roman emperor Octavius (Coogan) and Native American tracker Sacajawea (Peck) to storage in Washington.

On arrival at their new home, Jed and co are attacked by cranky pharaoh Kahmunrah (Azaria), who has awoken from centuries of slumber and intends to take over the world with Ivan The Terrible (Guest), Al Capone (Benthal) and Napoleon Bonaparte (Chabat). Larry races to the rescue, flanked by gutsy pioneer Amelia Earhart (Adams).

Night At The Museum 2 is a soulless exercise in digital might over emotional substance and subtlety. Directed once again by Shawn Levy, the sequel allows the visual effects team to run riot by relocating the storyline to the largest museum complex in the world: the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

Thus, in a chase around one gargantuan subterranean vault, Stiller’s beleaguered night guard dodges the tentacles of a giant squid as a pterosaur swoops overhead.

Stiller generously surrenders the big laughs to Azaria’s plummy pharaoh, who is momentarily distracted by the quest for “the cube of Rubik”.

A two-disc DVD and Blu-ray box set, comprising the original Night At The Museum and the sequel, is also available.

Rating: **