There are a few words you can use to describe "The Hangover Part II." Hysterical-no, laugh out loud-no, self indulgent, lazy and arrogant-definite. It's hard to think of when such a pathetic and half-hearted sequel has been produced to cash in on the success of the original. ‘The Hangover' grossed over $467m worldwide back in 2009, the most successful ever R-rated comedy.
Now this is where filmmakers should get their brain into gear before they waste time and money bringing garbage like ‘The Hangover Part II' to the big screen. The charm and originality of the original was what made it so alluring and successful. It should have been left as an outstanding but stand alone film, but you can see why the temptation to make a sequel was there.
The thing is a sequel to a monster hit needs to be thought about carefully. The same characters obviously, and even the same premise can work if it is written cleverly and has originality. This film has neither, and you get the feeling that the script has just been thrown together from those rejected scripts that lie around gathering dust in producers and directors offices.
One of the greatest scenes in ‘The Hangover' was when the motley crew woke up in the trashed hotel room, a brilliant piece of storytelling written succinctly and performed meticulously. The director of Part II, Todd Phillips obviously thought so too, as he has repeated it, and several other scenes and jokes. Now you can see why this film is lazy and self-indulgent.
They have remade the first film but moved it to Thailand. The boys don't find a baby this time; it's a chain smoking monkey. Stu the mid mannered dentist wakes up this time with all his teeth intact, but has a tattoo on his face. He doesn't burst into song at the piano this time either; it's with a guitar. The final insult to the audience's intelligence is that he doesn't sleep with a hooker, he's in Thailand, try and guess where this goes!
The arrogant Phil is once again played by Bradley Cooper, and Zach Galifianakis returns as Alan, the passive get aggressive man child. His portrayal of Alan in the original made Galifianakis a stand out star, and while they've tried to give him the best line in the new film he just comes across as infuriating. The missing groom from the original, Doug, is here again too, well barely here. He doesn't go missing but misses out again on a wild night.
What really beggars belief is that one of the most unimpressive characters from the original, Mr. Chow, gets even more screentime in part II, and there is no reason why this effeminate gangster played by Ken Jeong should be even there at all. This film is a complete waste of space, it runs for 101 minutes, which is about 100 minutes too long, and deserves to have gone straight to DVD.
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