2/10
The Hangover series is tired. It was tired even before The Hangover Part II two
years ago. The Hangover trilogy is the
new penultimate example of where the first film makes a ton of money and the
studio squeezes two more sequels out of it even though there is no story to
tell. The overall impact is that the
first film, which was so original and hysterical, is dragged down to the bottom
of the barrel because of its two worthless brothers tacked on to it.
What made The Hangover (2009) so good was how
it came out of nowhere. The major laughs
and events of their crazy, drunken night happened off screen and the audience
didn’t see those events until pictures in the credits. Brilliant.
Then The Hangover Part II (2011) repeated the exact same thing, but
in Bangkok. Just because it is set in a
foreign locale doesn’t make it better.
In fact, there were plenty of times when Las Vegas was more foreign than
Thailand.
Now writer/director Todd Phillips unloads The
Hangover Part III on us. What a
superfluous nothing. At least the
formula is different; nobody blacks out and then has to piece the missing
debauchery back together. Phil (Bradley
Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha) are escorting Alan (Zach
Galifianakis) to a center called ‘New Horizons’ which is supposed to somehow
cure him of being a 42-year-old adolescent.
Mean gangster Marshall (John Goodman) and his henchman Black Doug (Mike
Epps) kidnap ‘The Wolfpack’ because they are searching for Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong)
for some missing gold or something; it really doesn’t matter.
This is all just an excuse to get the old gang back together
for the audience, set them up for more hijinks and shenanigans, and hopefully
rake in another cool half billion dollars or so for Warner Bros. So tired.
Mr. Chow has a much bigger part than past films and gets naked again,
Doug disappears for almost the entire movie again, and Alan is that much more
tedious to endure. Alan must have a
version of Asperger’s Syndrome because he is still overtly rude and misreads
every single social situation. This was
so effective in the first film because it was so new and outrageous. Now it’s just a caricature of earlier success
but just throttled to death.
The Hangover did not need to be a trilogy. There were never any cliffhangers; the story required
no tying up with a bow. They brought Melissa
McCarthy in for this sequel because her name sells movie tickets at the moment
and the script needs all the help it can get even though she is just there to
be a female version of Alan, which is not funny. Alan gets on our nerves and now they give us
a double dose of him in the same scene.
The horse is dead.
The search for easy money and lazy writing thoroughly beat it
death. Cooper, Helms, and Galifianakis
should turn their backs on this franchise and never look back. Todd Phillips, who scored with Old
School (2003) and the first Hangover should stop plagiarizing himself
and snoop around his old, dusty basement to find his creativity.
Stay away from The Hangover Part III. Everyone involved with it is just
sleepwalking through it for the easy paycheck.
Take a look at Hollywood’s Memorial Day offerings this year. There is this Part III, The Fast and the Furious 6,
and Before
Midnight, the final part of its own trilogy. Are they really that hard up for original
screenplays or are they so risk averse we get needless sequel after
sequel?
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Written by: Todd Phillips, Craig Mazin
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Jeffrey Tambor, Heather Graham, Mike Epps
Can't disagree. This movie just exists to pull in some extra bucks from fans unwilling to give up hope after the first sequel. There were three slight moments in the movie, two at the beginning and one at the end, but they are so slight that enduring everything else makes them feel even less so.
ReplyDeleteIt takes quite the disaster to be worse than The Hangover Part II and this movie pulled off that feat within the first five minutes. This will earn a sure-fire spot on most Bottom 10 lists at the end of the year.
ReplyDelete