The Hangover: Part II (*½)
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha,
Ken Jeong, Mason Lee, Jeffrey Tambor, Jamie Chung, Paul Giamatti, Sasha Barrese
Seen: May 28th 2011
*½ Out of ****
Having painted Las Vegas red in the first movie, the team head for Thailand,
this time for Stu’s (Helms) wedding. Phil (Cooper) and Doug (Bartha) are invited
but have to convince Stu to invite Alan (Galifianakis), who’s been sulking at
home, standing by the post-box every day awaiting his invitation. Things go mostly
according to plan, apart from a few odd sidelines from Alan, but we all know
that when they go out for one drink, that that drink will inevitably turn into
a drunken drugged out binge of a night resulting in a bad hangover accompanied
by a violent case of insomnia regarding the last 12 hours. And they’ve lost
someone again, this time it’s Teddy (Lee), the little brother of Stu’s fiancée
Lauren (Chung). Doug (Bartha) ended up back at the hotel where everyone was
supposed to be, so his involvement here is by way of phone calls around the “investigation”
Retracing their steps around what they can remember, they slowly piece
together the previous night’s events, and it paints a very sordid picture. Alan
has managed to invite the crass Chow (Jeong), who joins them in fits and
bursts, and who manages to get them in heaps of trouble again, this time with
some shady Bangkok drug dealers and a bombastic mobster-looking guy named
Kingsley (Giamatti). The Wolfpack is back for more of the same, and also for
some more extreme experiences than they’ve previously had, making the audience
laugh more in disbelief at the audacity than anything else, I think (I didn’t
laugh much). Teddy isn’t on the roof
this time by the way, and while I won’t reveal where he ends up, I will say
that this ranks as possibly the only smart plot mechanism in this movie –
intelligently written into the story so as to link up with other elements
touched on.
The rest of the plot is at times so thin that at one stage the plot is
advanced through a clue obtained from guided meditation in which Phil, Stu and
Alan are portrayed as their 12 year old versions, drinking and partying up a
storm in Bangkok. Many elements from the first movie return: Phil’s stubborn
need to have a crazy bachelor’s party: Stu’s stuck-up being and his unfortunate
facial “self-redecoration”, Alan’s reprehensible nature regarding drugs and his
use of it on other people, and more. In fact, this is a carbon copy of the
first movie, overlaid on Bangkok, with a raunchier, dirtier and darker tone added.
Personally I find it alarming that this kind of life can be advocated on such a
large scale to such a large and unflinchingly accepting audience. A third movie
is already in the works, and I know it will push the envelope even further,
which is unfortunate, because humour shouldn’t be obtained from unnecessary
shock value, but rather from something more honestly funny, which I didn’t see
much of here.
The Hangover Part II is not as good as its predecessor, and it goes
further in terms of vulgar and crude attempts at humour. The audience was
laughing, but I’ve seen dramas and straight forward action movies with better
humour laced into them – and this was supposed to be a comedy. I cannot, in
good conscience (or any conscience for that matter) recommend this movie to
anyone, ever.
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