Etan Cohen

In Idiocracy (2006), a future civilisation cannot manage to water its crops. We laughed at a society defeated by something so basic; the joke hardly needs explaining. The script by Mike Judge and Cohen keeps finding fresh angles on that stupidity, but the plot is thin and the narrator explains too much. There is enough invention here to make a decent comedy, though the repeated explanations take some pleasure out of recognising the jokes ourselves.

King of the Hill (1997), about a propane salesman in a small Texas town, is a useful reminder that his credits also include quieter comedy. He wrote for it from 2001 to 2005, following work on Beavis and Butt-Head. We recommend the programme warmly for its kindness and patience, though those qualities cannot all be assigned to one member of a writing team. His move into studio features included Tropic Thunder (2008), co-written with Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux, and Men in Black 3 (2012).

Directing was the turn, beginning with Get Hard (2015), which he also co-wrote, and continuing with Holmes & Watson (2018). The latter gives Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly a sound comic task: make Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson ridiculous while leaving their friendship worth watching. Cohen gets the ridiculousness but loses the warmth. Anachronisms arrive without rules for the period world, and the gross-out jokes have little to offer once the initial provocation is over. He also lets failed jokes linger, making a poor comedy needlessly wearying.

We would not ask Cohen to become less silly. The trouble in Holmes & Watson is that a detective spoof needs a coherent story for the stupidity to interrupt, and he scarcely supplies one. His writing with Judge gives the foolishness a more consistent setting, even when the storytelling wanders. Try Idiocracy for the jokes, provided you can tolerate the narrator explaining them.