In 2009, a little film called The Hangover swept the box office during the lucrative summer months. After that it wasn’t surprising to hear that the studio immediately greenlit a sequel to take advantage of the name recognition. Said sequel, The Hangover: Part 2, is about as uninspiring as its title. Sure it’s funny but it’s only funny due to copying everything that happened in the original. The script is uninspired with another memory lapsed adventure and loses a lot of the heart and camaraderie of the first which is a shame considering how hilarious the original is.
In the sequel to The Hangover the Wolfpack is celebrating the marriage of mild-mannered dentist Stu (Ed Helms). Afraid of repeating events of the past Stu settles on a peaceful bachelor party brunch before jetting off with his friends to Thailand where the wedding will take place. Once there the group has a drink by a bonfire….and forgets everything else. When they wake up the boys are stuck in Bangkok with Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and Stu’s fiancée’s little brother Teddy (Mason Lee) missing. With hours to go before the wedding the group has to find Teddy and make it out of Bangkok alive.
While the humor is there the movie is a flat-out lazy sequel. From the tacked on “Part 2” of the title and beyond the movie seems to take the script from the first one and cross out all the “Vegas” moments and replace them with “Bangkok.” There’s nothing new, exciting or original as the movie even falls back on opening with the same voicemail messages and Phil calling friend Doug’s (Justin Bartha) now-wife. From there the movie has the exact same structure of the original so there are no surprises. The group go through a lapse of time and need to find someone and there’s little else to differentiate including Stu again having a trouble with a prostitute and Alan finding something cute to love, instead of a baby though it’s a monkey. It wouldn’t be such a problem if the group had the same connection but they don’t seem to. The bulk of the cast go through the motions and the newcomers, including Lee and Jamie Chung as Stu’s fiancée have no characterization, Chung especially as it’s hard to believe why she’d fall for Stu in the first place.
The acting is solid but lacks any type of heart or emotions. Helms’ character screams, Cooper’s character plots and Galifianakis just say funny things. They seem to have no connection to each other in this film and just spend the movie fighting before coming together in the end. It feels a bit false though considering how they are supposedly distanced as the film begins so by the end you just assume they’ll split back up. Ken Jeong is funny but his Chow character is so one-note he grates even more on the nerves than in the last film. Paul Giamatti has a few lines before disappearing entirely and Justin Bartha gets left out in the cold again, honestly why couldn’t they include him in the adventure? The high point was Nick Cassavettes cameo as a Bangkok tattoo artist but even then it felt like stunt casting….which it was.
I wanted The Hangover: Part II to wow me but it left me wanting to watch the original. This installment is funny but that’s it. The story is weak, the characters are worse and there wasn’t that heart and connection of the first. See this on DVD alongside the original.
Final Grade: C
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