REVIEW: The Hangover Part 2

We're here to take your money.

I think my favorite joke in the entirety of The Hangover part 2 is the fact that its called The Hangover Part 2, as opposed to the Lehman's 'The Hangover 2'. The 'part' suggests an adventurousness that this film actually has throughly no use for. Perhaps the problem is that The original Hangover had such a specific premise, that any kind of sequel has to either follow that premise pretty closely and be accused of being derisive, or be different and risk alienating audiences. So it took the avenue of giving the audience what they want and doing absolutely nothing new. And at least from a financial standpoint, that looks to be the right call.

It does mean that I watch this movie having already seen it two years ago though. And while The Thailand scenery is more pleasing to look at then the Vegas backdrop, and Bangkok presents a more visibly dangerous ambience, this is a movie made to make money, only and completely, and thus reviewing it is pretty much pointless. I will say I enjoyed Ken Jeong much more then I did the first time around. There his performance was over the top to the point of ridiculousness, yet here he appears to have toned it down somewhat, allowing him to comprehensively steal a movie where his only real competition is a monkey. Bradley Cooper continues to showcase his hollow douchebag shtick, and while I like Ed Helms a lot, I liked him in Cedar Rapids and think he's one of the better comedic actors going, not so much here. Zach Galifinakis I found to be the most trouble, in that he was a lot less funny this time around and a lot more sociopathic. He was playing his character from Due Date, not the one from the original Hangover, and I hated that performance and character. There was a fun cameo from Paul Giamatti though.

The movie doesn't just go through the motions though, it almost copies them step by step to the point where everything fails way to calculated to feel genuinely funny, and outside of Jeong and some scenes of Monkeys acting like people, I didn't find there to be much of value here. Its a money spinner through and through, and while I liked the original Hangover quite a bit, this has lost some of the magic and feels way too synthetic. Phillips is a solid director and makes the whole thing look suitably polished, but you know, so what. Like you give a shit, because you're seeing it anyway, along with everyone under creation.

Rating: 5/10