The Hangover: Part II ** (2011, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Justin Bartha, Paul Giamatti) – Classic Movie Review 12,894

The same-again 2011 American comedy film sequel The Hangover: Part II brings back the original cast and is set in Thailand two years after the first film.

The same-again 2011 American comedy film sequel The Hangover: Part II brings back the original cast and is set in Thailand two years after the disastrous events of the bachelor party in Las Vegas, in The Hangover (2009).

It stars Bradley Cooper as Phil, Ed Helms as Stu, Zach Galifianakis as Alan and Justin Bartha as Doug, who travel to Thailand, where dentist Stu is getting married. Stu takes no chances and opts for a safe pre-wedding brunch. But of course, the best laid plans etc, and everything goes wrong, resulting in another morning after bad hangover with no memories of the night before. Ah, yes, it’s the same plot again.

The Hangover: Part II is directed by Todd Phillips, who writes the script with Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, with the same story relocated to Thailand. To be fair, that is tailored accurately to what the fans surely wanted, and they responded by making it a monster box office hit again. It took $586.8 million against a budget of $80 million.

There’s no doubt about its popularity then, but what about is quality? Maybe, like beauty, that is in the eye of the beholder. Comedy, especially, is very much to taste. Certainly the taste of this film is rather bitter, rather sour.

Anyway, Part II is overall amusing enough, and has some good laughs in places, but it is much less fresh and considerably less fun and less funny than the original The Hangover (2009). The film is over confident and over aggressive. It needs taking down a notch or two. The cast are talented funny people, by and large, but they seem desperate to amuse. Maybe they need charisma lessons. Perhaps we could resurrect the Rank Charm School. Okay, charm isn’t The Hangover’s flavour, but more likeability, would make the film, er, more likeable.

Talking about the need to be more likeable, I suppose I must mention the return of Ken Jeong as Leslie Chow, the Chinese gangster Phil, Stu and Alan encountered in Vegas. The character is a wholly unwelcome, grotesque, offensive creation, though that of course is the dodgy point. However there is also Jeffrey Tambor as Alan father Sid Garner, and Paul Giamatti as Kingsley/ Detective Peters, an undercover Interpol agent.

Looking back, the success of The Hangover trilogy seems to be very much a phenomenon of its time, even the first one perhaps not as funny as it seemed back then.

The Hangover (2009) was released on 5 June 2009 and was a critical and commercial hit as the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2009, with a worldwide gross of over $467 million. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

The sequel, The Hangover: Part II, was released on 26 May 2011,

The third instalment, The Hangover: Part III, was released on 23 May 2013.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,894

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