Brad Cooper and Kyle Osborne in '09. Still love ya, Brad! No hard feelings?
You have no idea how much I wanted to love “The Hangover Part II.” Really, I wanted to laugh with my teeth showing, but….nope.
I got to see the first Hangover a good month before it was released back in 2009, in an almost empty theater (just a couple of studio folks were with me) and I loved it. Loved. Of course, there was no “word of mouth” yet and no unrealistic expectations to be dashed; just a very funny flick. Period.
Two years later, The Hangover stands as the highest grossing R rated comedy in history and all eyes are on the remake, which moves the action from Las Vegas to Bangkok, where the Ed Helms character is getting married. Other than this change of location, the exact same elements that were in the original are in this sequel. Only they aren’t funny.
Yes, the guys will wake up the morning after a bender with no idea how they got where they are, then they’ll discover that crazy things happened, and that someone important to their group has gone missing. Same, same and same. But not funny.
It’s true that the original was raunchy and pushed the boundaries of the MPAA “R” rating, but the movie had charm and, dare I say it, almost a kind of innocence? In the Thailand set sequel, the charm is gone. It’s not just someone missing a tooth, it’s someone missing a finger! It’s not just Mr. Chow jumping out of a car trunk,buck naked—it’s Mr. Chow being, um, “serviced” by a monkey. It’s crass, it’s got a meaner tone, but the only thing that is truly unforgiveable in a comedy is if It’s-Not Funny. All else is fair game. Yes, I laughed a few times, but mostly I just felt bummed out that this movie was rounding the same bases without the same spirit. And it wasn’t funny.
The old comedic adage goes something like this: “Slip on a banana peel and fall on your bum? That’s FUNNY! Slip on a banana peel and crack your head open and start bleeding? That’s TRAGEDY.” And, of course…it’s not funny.
Shoulda Stayed In Vegas
“Hangover Part II” tells the further adventures of the trio of kooks who are again getting ready for a wedding. It’s a few years later with the same groom, different bride and instead of Las Vegas, we have Thailand. The plot (???) is a variation of Part I and makes little sense. Be ready for (1) a monkey who is a drug dealer, smoker, plus other ‘talents’, (2) some entertainers with extra ‘parts’, and (3) the singing debut of Mike Tyson. This one is mean-spirited.
GRADE = “B-“