Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The HANGOVER PART II

“The HANGOVER PART II” (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms & Zach Galifianakis)

“The Hangover” scored a 79 on my laugh-o-meter... Part II soared to 19 thanks to another entertaining round of photos shown during the closing credits.
I think that says it all. And there’s going to be a Part III ?
Unless Mel Gibson's in it, I’ll pass...

I’d like to leave this review at that, but I suppose I should explain to you why this movie pales in comparison to the original – It’s the same story but with a twist! Stu’s soon-to-be-brother-in-law Teddy disappears instead of soon-to-be-groom Doug. Amazing what they can come with in the ways of new original scripts isn’t it?

Everybody’s back for Part DUH, except Heather Graham is replaced by Paul Giamatti... Improves the acting caliber, but I’d rather look at Heather playing a stripper - especially in a comedy. Stu's new relationship is mega-creepy; he's engage to a Thailand girl (Jamie Chung as Lauren) who looks to be 17, maybe 18 years old. And everyone is mystified as to why her father doesn't want her to marry a 40-ish dentist coming off a failed marriage to a Las Vegas stripper.

That's another innovation – instead of Vegas being a co-star, the backdrop is the city of Bangkok, with all its live chickens & dead pigs roaming the streets.

Since the script is so familiar, it seemed that Ed Helms decided to make it ‘come to life’ by screaming most of his dialogue. Quirky, semi-disturbing idiot-savant-like Alan (Zach) comes across as a racist jackass and much meaner than the boyish misfit he played in the original.

Justin Bartha is back as Doug and contributes virtually nothing. Ken Jeong returns as a much kinder, less dangerous Mr. Chow (now a buddy with goofball Alan) though he still manages to get the hungover trio in steaming tubs of hot water. Now, it made some sense that Asian Mr. Chow might show up in Bangkok the same time as the hungovers –But Mike Tyson? Yes, the way they bring him in makes sense – but who wants him? And when you see what they have him do – displaying his lack of singing skills to go along with that Oscar caliber acting ability – it isn’t a welcome return by any means.
These people refused to be in a movie with Mel Gibson, but a convicted rapist is A-OK?

Just a side-note – Andrew Howard plays a Russian mobster in HO2 but doesn’t have nearly as many lines as he did playing a Russian mobster in Bradley Cooper’s previous film, “Limitless”. They were so lazy with this film they couldn’t even come up with a different guy to play a Russian mobster!

There is one scene that had me laughing out loud, but it is also its most difficult to watch... I'll only say that the stripper Stu gets 'involved' with in this film isn't nearly as enticing to watch disrobe as Heather Graham was.

The only reason to anticipate Part 3 is the obvious inclusion of my pal, Brody Stevens in yet another unnamed cameo – here, Brody plays bodyguard to mobster Kingsley (Giamatti) This time, unfortunately, he doesn’t even have one spoken line. Let’s hope they don’t make that mistake again when they spend the 7 minutes its going to take them to write the script for #3...

3 comments:

dbm said...

Didn't like it nearly as much as the first. There is only so far you can go with that kind of sophomoric humor a second time around. The only comedies that used the same exact material the second time around that worked was Airplane II and Porky's II. I thought the second Caddyschack was embarrassing. This was OK, but nothing great. I laughed a few times and that was it. The first movie I was cracking up the whole flick.

movie luva said...

I saw the first one and liked it OK...it's much more up the male audiences type thing. This time I chose to see my gender's sort of version of The Hangover, Bride Wars, which I thought was hilarious and would even recommend it for men as well.

Terry R said...

m.l. - I do hope you mean Bridesmaids instead of Bride Wars
because the former was passable, while the latter was trash...
I've heard people say that H-O 2
was 'almost as good' as the first one & I've had some say that the sequel was horrible. Those that think it even come close to the original are too easily amused,
or just like to see the same thing over and over again. It wasn't horrible, but it was very disappointing. I won't be looking forward to the 3rd one - with #2 making tons of money you know they'll just keep recycling the same crap to the dimwits that find the same bits funny over and over again...