Title: The Hangover Part 2
Director: Todd Phillips (Old School, Road Trip, The Hangover)
Ok, I'll give the Hangover Part 2 this- It was almost as good as Major League Part 2 and a little better than Back To The Minors. This one picks off pretty soon after the Wolfpack Part 1 ended with everyone heading to Thailand to attend Stu's wedding. My first question - what the fuck happened to Heather Graham? I thought she was great in the first one. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, there wasn't really any offered explanation as to, story-wise, what happened between her and Stu's character. What makes the situation a little more confusing is that Stu is already engaged to some other broad. Heather was almost as hot as Rene Russo in Major League, so right there this movie loses points. Anyways.
I went into this one with the highest of expectations considering The Hangover was probably my favorite comedy of the year when it was released. I read some early reviews suggesting that the story was just recycled with a change in locale and I was willing to accept that because why change what worked, right? It's not like this shit was The Godfather and required a whole new level of character developement for the sequel. With that being said - the early reviews that I read were spot fucking on. It's like Todd Phillips took the chronological order of events from the first film, did a little rewriting, and it was a done deal. Not to take away from the fact there are some surpremely funny moments. Once again, Zach Galifianakis steals the show as Alan. He does such a great job with this character and you can tell he's given A LOT of freedom to make the character his own. With that being said, a lot of the jokes (from all the characters) fall flat in a big way. Ken Jeong, reprising his role as Mr. Chow, is mostly annoying and not really funny at all. It seemed like his lines were slapped together really quickly just to get him more screen time this time around. In terms of cliched Asian characters, Takaaki Ishibashi was much better as Isuro Tanaka in Major League Part 2. Maybe they should have got him to play Mr. Chow. Ahhh, now I'm just getting ahead of myself here. Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper, who were also both great in the first film, don't have nearly as many memorable lines as they did in the film's predecessor. In fact, I can't think of one single line that I left the theatre thinking "Fuck, I need to take a mental note of that shit. That was gold." which is strange considering The Hangover was, for me, the most quotable movie in years.
With all the negativity aside, this could still be put in the 'average to above average' comedy file. With huge expectations, huge disappointment will inevitably follow a large portion of the time. In terms of Todd Phillips, you could say it ranks far behind Old School and a little bit ahead of School for Scoundrels. In terms of non-Todd Phillips- way the hell behind Major League.
Rating: 5.5/10
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