Grab some aspirin and black coffee for this one.
Released: 2011
Genre(s): Comedy
2009 brought us the original "The Hangover" - a rip-roaring romp through the seediest venues in Las Vegas, starring a pack of physically and morally-dehydrated (yet lovable) idiots attempting to piece a drunken and drugged night of unbridled debauchery back together. Insanity ensued. Laughter was had. Then a sequel was announced and the world held its breath with anticipation for what surely had to be a second, side-splitting comedy tour de force.
Alas. Those were simpler, more innocent times. Times before recycled jokes and scenarios were thrown about all willy-nilly in an uninspired attempt to cash in on the success of the first film. Times before full-frontal nudity seared my eyeballs at every turn. Times before...well, that last one was pretty bad; we'll leave it at that.
That's not to say that "The Hangover Part II" is a bad movie. In fact, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and one-liners that were just as, if not more genius than the first flick. The comedy stylings of Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong are particularly potent here, playing up the already outrageous characters they portrayed in the original. Everyone else comfortably slips back into their archetypes with ease, rounding out a solid cast with some serious laugh-generating potential. So why does this movie not hit like the first entry did?
For one, almost everything here is a reheated leftover from the preceding film - some scenes are shameless replicas of the first movie, almost shot-for-shot - and while this was delicious the first time around, nobody likes soggy french fries. Unfortunately, this blandness permeates throughout the entire film, weakly imitating some of the best jokes from the original.
Second, where was the acting here? I know it's a comedy with the primary focus of bathing in smut, but part of selling comedy is making it at least a little bit human or relatable. With the exception of Ed Helms, nobody seems to actually react to the fact that mind-boggling shit is going down for a second time. Nobody (once again, excluding Helms) gets overly pissed off. Nobody freaks out. Everybody kind of just takes it as it is and shrugs it all off, especially during the rushed and feeble ending scenes.
Third, where's the story? Whereas the first movie had the protagonists stumbling upon delightful situation after delightful situation (which did a great job of fleshing out interpersonal relationships and backstories), we're left knowing next to nothing about what actually happened during this most outrageous journey. With such a radically different setting to work with, it's a wonder why this wasn't capitalized on more. Instead, all we get are a bunch of shots of wieners.
And that brings us to our fourth point: shock factor. I'm all for it, when used in moderation, but to completely replace the plot with gross/weird-out moments is purely amateur. It grabs a couple of laughs here and there, but overall this darker take on humor actually hits with far less comedic impact than it should. And that's because it's repeatedly beaten into the fabric of this film. With a penis.
It may seem like I panned the eff out of this flick (my writing kind of did), but I want to make sure everyone knows that I didn't hate "The Hangover Part II"; rather, I was just very disappointed. The last movie was a delicious, well-seasoned steak. I came back to the same restaurant, ordered the same thing as last time, and was served this film: a Steak-Umm with ketchup on it. It serves up a decent helping of funny moments, but overall it's incredibly underwhelming, and for that I have to drop it down to a score of "meh." Let's hope that the next "The Hangover" movie comes back a bit less hungover.
Rating (out of 5): 2.5
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