The Hangover 2
Stu, Phil, Alan, and Doug are back for more adventures of ‘The Wolfpack’. The movie is getting mixed reviews and, reading the reviews, the frustration seems to be that it is a recycling of the first movie. Given the fact that the whole premise is in the title, I’m not sure how far they could have varied from the formula that made the first one great and still make it a film that people wanted to see. I will say, there are a lot of similarities, but half the fun for me was the ‘Here we go again’ feeling during a variety of scenes. The exotic location of Bangkok provided enough variation of depraved antics that I still found the movie very enjoyable.
Last time it was Doug (Justin Bartha) who got married (The most forgettable member of the Wolfpack and more so in the sequel). This time Stu the Dentist (Ed Helms) is getting married and his wife is Thai American, so they travel to Thailand for a big wedding held by her disapproving father. Bless the movies because only in movies can a guy like Ed Helms end up with Heather Graham in the first movie and marry a stunningly beautiful Thai woman (played by the angelic Jamie Chung) in the second. This is the movies and that’s how it works. The scenery in Thailand was equally beautiful and the debaucherous city of Bangkok is the perfect backdrop.
In fairness to the critics, the story does follow the pattern of the last one. The one variation is that the Wolfpack loses Stu’s young brother-in-law after toasting each other on a beautiful Thai beach and waking up in a slum hotel in Bangkok. Once again they must retrace their steps from their blackout to find the brother-in-law before the wedding. The audience laughs and cheers when they wake up and somehow the effeminate gangster Chang (Ken Jeong) is in the room with them (how did he show up in Bangkok?). The producers were smart to have a larger role for Chang as he steals every scene that he is in. I love every role this guy plays. I think he has a bright comedic future for some time to come.
So as they retrace their steps each clue leads to an even more horrific discovery of what they did the night before. The scene in the Thai Strip club gets the most horrific shock laughs in the film. Over the top pricelss, but I saw it coming a mile away. Knowing a bit of the back story of this film, I did know there were supposed to be some big name cameos. Unfortunately, many backed out (like Bill Clinton) or were replaced (Mel Gibson, who had his very public melt down after his scene was shot). It was a little distracting not to see them in those scenes (I would love to have seen Mel has the grizzled tattoo artist). Still, the laughs are what we loved from the first one; shock value raunchy. Paul Giamatti’s scene did stay in the film and he did his usual great comedic job.
I do think they over played the character's personality traits too much. The slightly off Alan (Zach Galianakis) was played over the top crazy. Stu was a little too wimpy, and Phil was too handsome and charming (amazing how handsome he is after waking up from a hangover). Still, a minor critique of a funny movie. Perhaps the critics were right and the movie followed the template of the first one too closely, but all I know is that I laughed often and hard. How can you fault a movie too much if that is what I got out of it?
I rate this movie *** ½ stars
No comments:
Post a Comment