All of “The Hangover Part III”’s problems can be summed up in one short sentence: The movie isn’t funny.
In the first ten minutes of the film, a giraffe is decapitated, its head flying in the air and landing on a car’s windshield. Moments later, the father of “Alan” (Zack Galifianakis) has a heart attack and dies. So far, no laughs. And then an intervention is staged because Alan has gone of his meds, so the “Wolf Pack”, which includes Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms, re-convenes to drive poor Alan to a rehab facility. It’s a trip that will be interrupted by Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and others.
There will be shots fired, violence and a simple “bad guys chasing good guys” plot involving gold bars. What there will not be are laughs. Or hangovers. Or fun surprises.
The recent “Iron Man 3,” which was very good, and the forthcoming “Fast and Furious 6,” which isn’t too bad, prove to be exceptions to the rules of movie sequels. Sadly, The Hangover franchise ends its run like a car running out of gas on a desert highway—it just slowly, sadly, rolls to a quiet stop.
In the first two installments, characters like the ones Galifianakis and Jeong play, were used as punctuation—as punchlines—as the “Jacks” that pop out of Jack-In-The-Boxes (remember Jeong popping out of a trunk, naked and screaming?). In this finale, those characters have been elevated to leading character status, while the more relatable characters are moved to the back seat. The result is more noise, less comedy.
The whole damned thing just seemed mean-spirited to me. And boring. But mostly, it just wasn’t funny.
To paraphrase the late Roger Ebert–a great film is never depressing, no matter how heavy the subject matter might be, because you are watching a GREAT film, which is an exhilarating experience. Conversely, a bad film is ALWAYS depressing, no matter if it’s supposed to be light-hearted or hilarious. Being categorized as a comedy doesn’t make for a better experience if the film doesn’t make you laugh.
And so, one leaves the theater feeling kinda sad and crappy. It’s almost like being hung over.
“The Hangover Part III” is rated “R” for just about everything. It’s in area theaters now.
P.S. There is one funny scene—but it pops up during the credits. If you can stay seated that long, it’s almost worth it to see the shocking site-gag.
Kyle Osborne and Bradley Cooper
Sidebar:
Exactly 4 years ago, the reps from Warner Bros brought by a super nice guy from Philly called Brad Cooper. The movie that would blow him up exponentially was still nearly a month away from being released-the few of us who’d seen it knew it was going to be huge. Hardly anyone gave him a second look-obviously handsome, but otherwise he was just a regular dude. We had our photo snapped-and he could tell that I wasn’t happy with it ( you can see why-I was fat and, etc). Anyway-ill never forget that when I walked him outside the building to his car, he asked if I wanted to take another pic–how cool is THAT!! What I’ve since figured out-only the very vain or very clueless would stand next to a guy like that for a photo. Me? I didn’t have a clue. I hate Hangover III, but I think Brad is one of the coolest guys in the business.