- Director – Todd Phillips
- Cast – Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helmes, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong.
- Genre – Comedy
- Watch Because – Some funny moments, Entertaining second half
- Dont Watch Because – Tries too hard, Missing situational humor, Does not live up to expectations, Shoddy direction, editing.
- Rating – ♥♥ and a half out of 5
- VERDICT – Suffers from a hangover from The Hangover. WATCH but not before disconnecting yourself from the first part. No out of the world stuff. Do not expect much.
From a critical point of view, Hangover Part 2 suffers from Gratuitous Sequelitis. This condition affects movies which are released as a follow up to any successful movie, and the number at the tail of it may be 2, 3, 4, 5… (Case in point: Pirates of the Caribbean 2+, The Matrix 3, Terminator 3+, American Pie 4+ and umpteen more). Now, the movie scores somewhat well in it’s own right. The problem is it can never be seen in it’s own right or light. It will always be the second part of “The Hangover”. Now, we are programmed to think that the sequel of a popular movie should score one up in terms of content and presentation on the original, while retaining all its loveable parts. But almost always, film makers get carried away and either make the sequel an exact copy of the first, or lose track and dish out something totally senseless. The former happened here.
Disclaimer: I had read many reviews about the movie before and hence knew what to expect. So it was easier to disconnect my mind from the first part, and so I enjoyed the movie. Well, most of it.
STORYLINE (No Spoilers)
Stu is getting married to his Thai girlfriend in Bangkok. After the disastrous outing in Vegas, he has become a total “play it safe” guy and decides to give a “bachelor brunch” in a restaurant instead of a full blown party. He keeps Alan (Zack Galafianakis) away as he is scared that he will screw things up as he did the last time. But Phil and Doug protest against and insist he invite a heart broken Alan to the wedding. He concedes, and the three set out to Bangkok and at the airport meet Teddy, Stu’s 16 year old modest and unassuming genius brother-in-law-to-be studying at Stanford. Alan hates him at first sight as he sees him as an ‘intruder’ into their “Wolfpack”. After a disastrous set of introductions, Stu, Doug, Phil, Alan and Teddy make a bonfire at the beach and drown some beer from a sealed case to make sure no one had spiked them and avoid what happened in Vegas. But the next day, history repeats. Phil, Alan and Stu wake up in a dingy hotel room along with Chow minus Doug and Teddy…
What happened the night before? Where is Teddy? What is Chow doing with them? How did they end up in the hotel room? As in the first movie, they go searching for answers.
REVIEW: ROTTEN EGGS, TOMATOES, POTATOES…
The movie is more like a dark investigative comedy and not the goofy-slapstick type that was expected. The expected more good and better laughs, funny scenes and situational comedies unfortunately did not materialize. A good part of the beginning of the movie is wasted in Phil and Doug trying to convince Stu to invite Alan to the wedding, and it was set that Stu will be the thorn in the side of this would-be-funny movie. He continues to whine, moan and complain throughout the film, which gets pretty irritating and spoils the flow of the film at times. The entire first half was a drag, wasted as the three try to sort out their differences rather than taking the plot forward. In fact, I think 40% of the movie is wasted on arguments between the three and with others, with the ever-whining Stu in the center. That is what put me off the most. The movie pulls itself together in the second part, after Stu gets shot and they find Chow. Some of the funniest parts that could have been, like what happened at “The White Lion” bar, are sketchily shown instead of full sequencing and was a big disappointment. The movie series made it big as a situational comedy, but here that is conspicuous by it’s absence. All explanations are through conversation, and nothing much happens in the present timeline. And as it was in the first part, the comic talent of Justin Bartha is totally wasted because they kept him out. Galifianakis sleepwalks throughout the movie, delivers little memorable shots but during the speedboat scene.
In short, too much time wasted with the characters arguing, talking and wandering around, the screenplay is loose, editing a disaster and the soundtrack asinine. It tries too hard to be funny along with many other things, it is vague, has unnecessary sub-plots (the monk one – the monastery thing was ridiculous) and is a disaster at editing. Todd Phillips messed this up just like he messed up “Due Date”. All the problems that that movie had are present here. The drug-dealing monkey is nice, though. And the bonus is the appearance and the dance in the end!
And not to forget the template: A marriage party, loss of memory, missing people et al. The movie is almost exactly same as the first part! The location and the person who goes missing changes. It is almost like: “Hey, look, this is the sequel to a funny movie, so this is funny too! Please laugh.”
SEQUEL: Yes, there is going to be a sequel. My advice here: Get rid of the template. Ditch the marriage and missing people. Keep Ed Helmes out and Bartha in. And the location has to be the other sin city of the world, Amsterdam!
Now Imagining conversation between the producers or someone.
“Dude, let us make a sequel to The Hangover!”
“Yeah! It will be great! Think of all the $$$! Now, we need some jokes and shit. And a story.”
“Are you kidding me? They all go to marry someone off, you know, and party the night away, next day wake up somewhere with no memory of what happened with someone in the gang missing.”
“Eh? Isn’t that the story of the first part?”
“Yeah. But cares, dude, that is what worked. Only we need to bring in some difference somehow. You know, like need to show the human side of the characters or something like that. And We will marry off Stu this time.”
“Yeah! And we need an exotic location. Vegas or even USA is pretty mainstream. How about Bangkok?”
“Awesomeness! In that case we will throw in some Asian dudes, drug dealers, a monkey, a monk, and ladyboys with big ***** as well.”
“Great! Anything else? Oh yeah. We need to change the name of the movie to Hangover 2”
“Yeah, that too. Come on, let’s go make this! Now where are the joints?”
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