Entourage

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Doug Ellin.

Cast: Adrien Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Jeremy Piven, Ronda Rousey, Haley Joel Osment.

"No, hear me out - we'll do some cocaine, go to a party, and then make a movie out of it."

AFTER eight seasons and a five-year break, Vinnie, E, Turtle, Drama and Ari are back.

If this means nothing to you, it's probably because you never watched the TV show Entourage, in which case you should a) stop reading this review and b) avoid this movie like a bout of chlamydia.

Entourage the film is directly aimed at the audience of Entourage the series. No effort is made to engage new fans. In fact, there's no real effort to make this anything more than a super-long episode of the series.

The film coasts along on the same mix of easy-going charm, Hollywood voyeurism and low-stakes drama that made the show enjoyable if somewhat tiresome over its eight-year run.

If you've read this far without having seen the show, here's the set-up - Entourage was initially loosely based on the life and times (and entourage) of actor Mark Wahlberg, with Grenier's Vincent Chase standing in as a fictionalised Marky Mark.

After eight seasons of ups and downs including Hollywood blockbusters, bad press, rehab and plenty of flings, the film rejoins a newly single Chase as he prepares to make his directorial debut, with his best bud and manager E (Connolly) serving as producer.

But running over-budget puts him at odds with new studio head and Chase's former manager Ari Gold (Piven), as well as the film's Texan financiers (Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Joel Osment).

Meanwhile the rest of the entourage have their own problems - E's ex is pregnant, Turtle is head over heels for mixed martial artist-turned-actress Ronda Rousey, and Johnny Drama is, well, still Johnny Drama.

All films need to be judged on their own goals and their own demographic and whether they reach both in an effective way. In the case of Entourage, it does everything it sets out to do - to provide one more outing for the fans of the show, while capturing the tone and style they've come to know and love.

There's not much more to it than that. The story is as thin and unpretentious as many of the ongoing plots in the TV series, covering the same old Hollywood ground of the movie business, problems with the ladies, and boys being boys.

As expected there are plenty of cameos crammed into every available space director/show-runner/writer/producer Ellin can find, with only Rousey getting a sizeable role as herself (and acquitting herself reasonably well). It's also good to see Osment back on the big screen, and he's in decent form as an unlikeable Texan producer wannabe.

Some have labelled this as a misogynistic, boy-ish fantasy, and maybe it is, but so much of its portrayal of Hollywood rings true given that Tinseltown has been proven time and time again to be a misogynistic place where boys try to make their fantasies come true, not that Entourage ever managed to be the biting satire it probably should have been, either as a TV show or a movie. Instead it was a celebration of enduring friendship, of rags-to-riches success, and of the highs and lows of the film industry.

This big screen version continues to be that - nothing more, nothing less.