“It happened again,” a bleary-eyed Bradley Cooper confesses in the opening moments of “The Hangover Part II,” the sequel to the 2009 smash.
Two hours later you’ll understand Cooper wasn’t joking.
“Part II” doesn’t just reunite the key players from the original. It Xeroxes the formula with a counterfeiter’s fidelity. You knew the sequel couldn’t catch us by surprise with its wild antics. But did this cynical franchise builder have to be so calculated, so sober in its approach?
This time, nerdy dentist Stu (Ed Helms) is the one getting hitched, and the destination wedding takes his “Wolfpack” buds to Thailand. Stu knows better than to attempt another bachelor party, so he settles for a bachelor “brunch” which ticks off Phil (Cooper) to no end.
But the gang, including man-child Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug (Justin Bartha), and brother of the bride Teddy (Mason Lee), opt for a single beer each over a roaring beach fire pit.
What could go wrong?
Cut away to a gross hotel room in the heart of Bangkok, the Wolfpack members scattered across its disgusting floors. Alan’s hair is gone, and so is Teddy – but the young man’s finger was left behind.
Naturally, they can’t remember a thing about the night before. But with the wedding in less than two days they better start putting the pieces back together, and fast.
“The Hangover Part II” takes the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra to uncomfortable new levels. Same jokes. Same scenario deposited in a foreign land. We even get the same unexpurgated snapshots rolling during the end credits. And, if you happened to be the one soul who missed the original, you’ll be lost in no time given all the references to the first “Hangover.”
That film felt bawdy, raw and legitimately out of control with its wacky cameos and animal wrangling. The sequel can’t even get the cameos right. Does anyone outside of an indie movie blog know who Nick Cassavetes is?
The best comic addition is written all over Stu’s face, a tattoo riff on Mike Tyson’s signature ink.
“The Hangover” made Galifianakis an overnight sensation, and for good reason. Here, he takes Alan in new and arbitrary directions to chase down any laugh he can. What was charming the first time around quickly becomes an irritant. The same holds true for Ken Jeong, back to play the wannabe gangsta who gives the Wolfpack fits.
Any “Hangover” sequel seemed doomed from the start. The premise of the first film pushed the boundaries of logic and reason. The very notion of a sequel felt artificial to the core. Yet watching Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis in action proves otherwise. They’re a great trio, each bringing a wholly divergent comic persona to the mix. And Helms is the best comedian of the lot, singing a silly but tuneful ode to their woes mid film and doing some of the best scream-crying since Stan Laurel hung up his act.
Too many comic premises here simply wither on the cinematic vine, like a dream sequence casting child actors as the Wolfpack and an extended bit with a chain-smoking monkey.
Cooper’s Phil instructs his friends at one point to check their pockets for any clues about another lost night.
“You know the drill,” he tells them.
It’s a bald confession that “The Hangover Part II” is merely an exercise in sequel comfort food, nothing more.
(Note: If you liked this review, please share it with one of the social media buttons below. If not, let me know why!)
(Photo: Bradley Cooper stars as Phil in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ comedy “The Hangover Part II,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
It being Thailand, I assume there are elephants? And child prostitution jokes? Or does completely aping the original preclude even unoriginal new material?
Personally I was already tired of the “what the hell did I do last night” formula when it was called “Dude, Where’s My Car?”.
Yes, and what about “hookers”(stripers?) who cover themselves in a flammable gel and light themselves on fire and then dive into a pool to extinguish the flames?
I hope there were a bunch of disgusting food jokes (their local cuisine is not set for Western stomaches)
The only nice thing I have to say about this movie is I’m glad I saw it for free.
Bummer, we are seeing it tonight. I think we are going for drinks first, hopefully that will help.
OK, I remembered one additional thing to like about Hangover 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xzAHUw-jQ .
SPOILER ALERT and WARNING/ADVICE:
Blessedly, they didn’t save this for the end credits vocal and you should leave the theater after hearing it over the opening credits.
Ooh! I can see “The Hangover 3″ now! Get this….one of the idiots gets engaged and his friends throw him a party and everyone wakes up in a strange place with an animal sacrifice in the center of the room, a severed human foot, two dead hookers, a suitcase full of euros, and a couple of loaded machine-pistols.
HAHAHAHA! I’m a screenwriter now!
My God man, have you gone mad? What if someone in Hollywood sees that?!
DO NOT go see HANGOVER II. It was APPALLING, DISGUSTING, and EXTREMELY SICK. About half way through the movie, there was a scene where the main characters went into a stripper bar in Bangkok, looking for the groom’s 16 year old, soon to be brother in law. While working their way towards the middle to speak with the owner, they bypass tens of young looking, teenage looking girls working as strippers. They finally get to the owner, and he remembers them from the night before and is looking to sell them his gun. The men tell him “we are looking for a boy”, and he answers “$2000″. Thinking the owner is referring to the gun, they are shocked and answer “what??”. The owner then says, “$2000. What age do you want” referring obviously to child prostitution. As I sat there in my seat, wanting to puke to death, my wife and I looked at each other and immediately got up and left the movie theater. But even more APPALLING, DISGUSTING, and DISTURBING than the child prostitution joke was the fact that from the 300 people in the movie theater, only two people from the audience decided to leave. I can’t sleep right now. I am sick over the entire event.