Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Jamie Chung
Plot: Two years after the bachelor party in Las Vegas, Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Alan (Galifianakis) jet to Thailand for Stu's wedding. Stu's plan for a subdued pre-wedding brunch, however, goes seriously awry when his bride's younger brother goes missing.
As you may have heard 'The Hangover Part II' is incredibly similar to the first one, so much so that it might be the laziest film to make over half a million dollars at the box office. That's not to say this sequel isn't entertaining because it absolutely is but you can't help but feel it could have been so much more.
As alluded to in the title the second installment of 'The Hangover' has a serious case of deja vu. Todd Phillips and his writers make it no secret they are taking almost every element from the previous movie that worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it right? Wrong. Instead of tiger and a baby we have a drug dealing monkey and a mute monk, Mr. Chow (Jeong) shows up in a similar fashion as the first and Stu again does something he regrets (although it is admittedly more dark). After a while it becomes very frustrating to see just how intentionally lazy this film is, as it goes as far as having the exact same artists on the soundtrack with Danzig, Kanye West and Wolfmother all appearing. It's basically the first one but in Bangkok.
As for the wolfpack themselves, Phil is still the straight man, Stu still has his underlying demons and Doug (Justin Bartha) is of course not involed because it would have been far too creative to work him into the story. Alan is the only character that seems different than in the first movie. This time around he doesn't seem as innocent in his stupid questions and at times seems just plain mean. The problem is likely to be that Alan has no interest in finding Teddy (newcomer Mason Lee) as he makes it plain from the get go he doesn't like him. While Alan is occassionaly funny he is much more unlikeable than before and there comes a point where one of his actions, in the real world, would lead to Phil and Stu leaving him in Bangkok for good.
For all its faults however 'The Hangover II' is an enjoyable comedy film. The main trio still have such fantastic chemistry together that it is hard not to laugh at the various zany and disgusting situations they get into, regardless of how similar they are to 'Part I'. Mr.Chow is again a scene stealer, if a bit overused and the star of show is undoubtedly the drug dealing monkey, who for some bizarre reason wears a denim Rolling Stones jacket. I suppose that's Bangkok.
The comedy probably has more misses than hits with several scenes falling flat like a painfully unfunny trip to a Monk's monastery and constant references back to the first one that feel forced and unnecessary. But when the comedy does works it can be hilarious, especially the darker parts involving Stu which will disgust and amuse in equal measure.
Never before has a comedy film both succeeded and failed in such different ways. For the most part the humour is good and works, but the film almost completely fails on a creative level that stops it from being a good film. Just finding and replacing the word Vegas with Bangkok in the script doesn't neccassarily constitute a new and different film. Even if there were a few different plot points that weren't so obviously taken from the first film it could have made a world of difference to critics reactions. The plot was beat for beat the same, but still Teddy's actual location remained a complete mystery and most importantly it is incredibly difficult to figure out.
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