Every once in awhile a movie will jump out, catch everyone off guard and completely exceed any expectations a studio may have had for it. In 2009, a perfect example of this was a comedy called The Hangover directed by Todd Phillips and starring relative newcomers Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis. It wasn't expected to do as well as it did but once the word-of-mouth machine got rolling it quickly became a huge hit. It would even go on to shock everyone by winning the Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical. Raunchy, buddy movies typically just don't that kind of respect. But The Hangover was different because it remembered one of the basic rules of comedy....Be funny!! So many gross out or raunchy comedies these days are just that, without the humor. The Hangover went on to gross over $270 million at the US box office which is just an enormous amount of money for a film of its kind.
Fast forward two years to 2011, and naturally the studio is going to build off that success and we get the inevitable sequel. Usually this is a bad sign of things to come, and I was skeptical entering the theater. That skepticism went away early in the film though and it was like sitting back with an old buddy and relieving the old days. The Hangover 2 is not quite as good as the first film but there are more than enough laughs to keep you busy for a couple of hours. The movie has received a lot of criticism leading up to its opening with critics stating it is the same exact story as the first one with only the location changing. For the most part, they are completely right with this criticism. It is the SAME movie, but when the first one is so darn funny is that necessarily a bad thing?? There is very little originality in the script and because of that I think a Hangover 3 (it's inevitable..you know it) is probably not a good idea. It worked this time, but you don't want to go to that same well too often.
The movie opens with the Wolfpack of the original film heading to Thailand for Stu's (Ed Helms) wedding. He is marrying a young lady named Lauren whose father does not think highly of Stu, comparing him to flavorless rice pudding in an awkward, yet funny, dinner scene. The Wolfpack, not wanting a repeat of their episode in Vegas, decide to have a simple bachelor party at a beach bonfire and insist on only one drink each. The guys bring along Lauren's brother, Teddy (Mason Lee), who is a 17-year old genius and the pride of the family. Everything starts out innocently enough and we think the guys have learned their lesson. But if that was the case, there would be no movie. Night passes and the next morning Phil (Cooper), Alan (Galifianakis) and Stu wake up in a seedy Bangkok hotel room. Alan's head has been shaved and Stu has a tattoo on his face that is the same one Mike Tyson is famous for. As they slowly start to realize that they have screwed up again things get even stranger when a monkey jumps on them and they also find a severed finger in the room. But it's just not any severed finger, they can tell from the ring that the finger is Teddy's and he is nowhere to be found. They are not completely alone though as they realize that Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) from the first movie has showed up to party with them as well. Phil is able to get a hold of their friend Doug, who left the beach early that night, and he covers for the guys as long as he can while the Wolfpack go in search of Teddy so they can get back to the wedding.
From here, the jokes play out similarly as they did in the first film. The guys are able to backtrack through the seedy Bangkok streets and slowly put together what happened to them. They have run ins with gangsters, drug dealing monkeys, monks, strippers and a whole slew of other shady characters on their journey. There are scenes that are completely hysterical and the character Alan would be worth a spin-off movie of his own. I absolutely loved the line from him when he is reading a password, "K as in Knife". That's funny, I laughed at that for 10 minutes. There are also some scenes that push the limits a little much, namely the "strippers". But the film is funny from open to close and that's the biggest thing for a comedy to do, just be funny. This succeeds.
I do want to get on a soapbox real quick though. In the theater I saw this in, a lady brought a young girl in to the movie who was maybe 8 or 9. Look, are there R-rated movies out there that I would be okay with a child seeing? Yes. This isn't one of them!!! The movie is rated R but it pushes the NC-17 limit. This is NOT a movie for kids. I'm not trying to tell everyone how to parent and each child is different but please leave the kids at home for this one. Enjoy the movie.
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