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The Hangover Part II
| Released |
26 May 2011 |
| Director |
Todd Phillips |
Starring
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Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Mike Tyson, Paul Giamatti |
Writer(s)
|
Todd Phillips, Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong |
| Producer(s) |
Todd Phillips, Dan Goldberg |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
102 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy |
| Rating |
16 |
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Hair of the dog.
I like to think I have a high tolerance level for the scuzziest of films. I’ve watched some truly nasty horrors without batting an eyelid. So while I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by The Hangover Part II, I certainly didn’t expect to feel as if I needed to shower after watching it. While the first one was disappointing but inoffensive, the sequel ups the ante of queasy squalor until it passes right through black comedy to land somewhere in the realm of the sinister. This is not because of any extreme gross-out humour (most of that is actually left to the photo montage that plays during the credits) but to put it simply, it’s just not funny and since it fails to deliver on laughter, all that’s left is a bunch of deeply unpleasant people doing deeply unpleasant things to each other and the unfortunate residents of Bangkok. And they really are an unpleasant bunch of characters- the kind for whom blowing off a little steam involves throwing Molotov cocktails at riot police and being spectacularly unfaithful to one’s future bride.
The plot shows an astonishing lack of imagination on the part of writer/director Todd Phillips and co-writers Scot Armstrong and Craig Mazin, being almost a play for play remake of the original. This time the “lucky” groom is Stu (Ed Helms). Having disposed of Heather Graham, he has somehow managed to land another beautiful woman, whom he plans to marry in Thailand- without a bachelor party. A few innocent beers on the beach don’t go to plan and Stu, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Phil (Bradley Cooper) wake up in a filthy hotel room with a monkey, a half naked criminal (the excruciatingly annoying Ken Jeong) and an amputated finger. And so it is up to the tiresome Wolfpack to piece together the events of the night before and search for the missing Teddy (Mason Lee), brother of the groom and owner of the aforementioned finger.
Along the way, the trio learn the considerable depths of their depravity, seem unaffected by it and somehow avoid prison. In other words, it’s more of the same minus the laughs and is as incoherent as the blurred memories of its protagonists. Not that any of this will make much of a difference to the box office figures; The Hangover Part II is bound to make a ton of money. It’s just a pity that its makers weren’t bothered to give the fans anything other than a sinister re-run of the original minus any charm or originality its predecessor may have had. When you throw in a smoking monkey for comedy value, you know you’ve hit creative rock-bottom.
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Linda O’Brien |
