[Spoilers…but if you’ve seen the first film, this one is already spoiled] You know how every summer is filled with superheroes (Thor, Captain America, The Green Lantern, and X-Men: First Class) and unnecessary sequels (Pirates 4, Trashformers 3, Cars 2, and…well, X-Men: First Class)? Well Hangover II is absolutely unnecessary, more than unnecessary, it’s a copy. They try to duplicate almost everything about the first one but the setting. This if a movie so desperate to please the mega hordes that slobbered over the first one, they change almost nothing from that first film, I guess thinking “Well if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” BUT movies aren’t supposed to function like that. Every one is SUPPOSED to show you something different.
But in this film–just like the first–Stu bangs a prostitute (this time, a she-male, har har!), Alan is the one who drugs them (why is an asshole constantly drugging his “friends” funny?), an animal factors into it (and a monkey is not nearly as funny as a tiger), Stu sings a song about what’s happening, Alan says shit that’s more stupid than funny, the “perfect” women sit back with their understanding mouths shut and only “bitches” ever chastise these guys (maybe Phil’s wife will actually get to say something in the third movie), their friend is missing while the bride deals with a wedding that almost gets cancelled, they think their friend is kidnapped due to something Mr. Chow is involved in (har har?), he turns out not to be, and Stu figures out he is instead trapped in the hotel at the last moment. By the time Mike Tyson drops by for a worthless and unfunny cameo and pictures of their “wild” night show during the credits to a Flo-Rida song, the film gives off a stank smell of desperation to cover all the bases of the first film, lazily ticking them off a checklist.
Problem is, for a movie that is all about guys getting drunk and having a wild time…how can they when none of it is spontaneous?
What Works: Obviously Thailand is beautiful (a scene with lanterns towards the end is nice…if in the wrong movie), and Bangkok has a scuzzy charm that could have produced real laughs…
What Doesn’t Work:…but it doesn’t. I don’t think I laughed one time during this movie. There’s a nice moment early on when the “wolf pack” first wakes up in the destitute hotel room that could function as a crack den, but other than that there’s almost nothing. WORSE, I feel like the movie didn’t really try. The film felt it could just coast on the residual goodwill of the first Hangover (already wildly overrated).
What I Would Have Done Differently: Almost everything as I wouldn’t have so slavishly copied the formula of the first movie. And let’s talk about that formula because to me it doesn’t really work. The guys have a wild time, they don’t remember any of it the next day, and they try to piece together what happened in a weird mix of Bachelor Party-meets-Memento. It was a gimmick that worked once–barely–out of the novelty value and the nice twist of having guys not remember the night they’ve been looking so forward to. But how can the same thing happen twice, how can it–in the inevitable Hangover III–happen three times?
If I were writing the Hangover III–where I’m sure Alan will get married–I wouldn’t have the guys black out at all. I would experience their wild night with them, instead of having them piece it together the next day which isn’t nearly as funny. Seeing the aftermath and hitting the rewind button to what happened produces more mystery than laughs, and I’m not sure that’s something that can keep working for a comedy franchise.