I don't usually agree on movie humor with other people. I don't know what it is, but I just don't find a lot of movies intentionally funny. When The Hangover came out in 2009, everyone I knew wanted me to share in the joy of the R-rated comedy and give it a try. So I did. It was okay, I'll admit. I laughed out loud at some of the closing credit pictures and I smiled at many of Zach Galifianakis' awkwardly delivered lines. While I certainly wasn't blown away --- will someone please explain how Bradley Cooper can headline a successful comedy without cracking jokes? --- I didn't hate it, and it's been a while since I could say that about any blockbuster comedy. With the shockingly huge success of the film, it came as no surprise when The Hangover Part II was announced. I will say that I was a little surprised at just how similar the two films appeared to be.
The Hangover Part II, like Part I, is about a bachelor party gone awry. This time, sweet dentist Stu (Ed Helms) is getting married and has invited the always bland Doug (Justin Bartha), dickhead Phil (Bradley Cooper), and --- against his better judgement --- the always peculiar Alan (Zach Galifianakis) to his wedding in Thailand. Why? Because Stu was the only unmarried non-Galifianakis character left after the last film, and a plausible change in location would add variety to the premise. In theory. So Stu's new fiance, Lauren (Jamie Chung), happens to be of Thai decent, and getting married in Thailand is very blah blah blah excuses excuses. Justifiably wary of Doug's bachelor party experience from the last film, Stu is intent on turning in early and making it safe and sound to his wedding. But then he agrees to one drink on the beach with his buddies and Lauren's little brother, Teddy (Mason Lee).
*Cue record needle scratch*
The next morning, Phil, Alan, and Stu wake up in a strange shit hole of an apartment in a city they don't recognize. Alan's head has been shaved, Stu has Mike Tyson's facial tattoo, and there is a monkey with a denim vest in their room. Oh, and Chow (Ken Jeong) has returned from the first movie and gives audiences a better look at his penis this time. The guys quickly realize that they have no recollection of the previous night. Thankfully, they get a phone call from Doug, which means that he didn't get lost this time and the film avoids being an identical copy of the first movie. Unfortunately, this time they have lost most of Teddy; they did find a finger, but that was not terribly reassuring. Now they have to once again piece together a night of drug- and alcohol-fueled debauchery to find a friend. Only this time, it's in Bangkok.
Correction: scenic Bangkok
The acting in The Hangover Part II is both what you expect and what we deserve. The good news is that nobody (except Jeong) mugs the camera, so nobody gets too annoying. Bradley Cooper is still a handsome devil, although he doesn't get to be nearly as big of a jerk this time around and, therefore, isn't very entertaining. He is, however, the most normal character in most of the scenes, so he becomes the rational, easy-to-identify-with character again. Ed Helms continues to use his most successful comedy personality to date; if you're tired of him playing a milquetoast with some seriously weird stuff repressed, then you're out of luck.
Yeah, I know. I'm familiar with your filmography.
Zach Galifianakis still has the funniest bits in the movie, but his part is a lot more aggressive and not nearly as awkward and random as in the original movie. If that sounds like he's a lot less funny this time around...then I expressed myself clearly. Ken Jeong has a much larger part this time, although he is missing from a chunk of the movie. While I generally don't like Jeong, I will admit that his ridiculous performance here was in line with the tone of the movie, so he didn't annoy me as much as he usually does. The only other actor that made an impact in this film was Paul Giamatti, who got to play his bad-guy-who-relishes-being-bad role again; personally, I like that persona and liked seeing him be mean for a few minutes. The rest of the cast is hardly in the movie at all. Justin Bartha and Jeffrey Tambor combine for a dozen lines, with maybe one being funny. Sasha Barrese, Jamie Chung, and Gillian Vigman play the wives of these idiots, but they have even fewer lines and are irrationally forgiving of their husbands. Mike Tyson shows up again, and it's kind of funny. Transsexual pornographic actress Yasmin Lee plays a small (but convincing) part as a transsexual stripper/prostitute in one of the edgier/funnier/weirder scenes. Nick Cassavetes has a small cameo that, while kind of funny, probably would have been more effective if I actually recognized him. Mason Lee (no relation to Yasmin, but son of Ang) doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, but what he does have, he fills with blank stares.
Okay, fine. He smiles once
I'm not entirely sure what to say about director and co-writer Todd Phillips' work in The Hangover Part II. Yes, he kept the look and feel of the movie the same as in the original. Yes, the characters were as consistent as comedic characters need to be. The change in locale added to the overall harsher feel of this movie --- Bangkok is a scarier place than Las Vegas, and the consequences of this night were far more severe --- and Phillips kept things moving as quickly as he could. The only problem with that speed is that the plot doesn't make a ton of sense. Sure, you can follow it, but there aren't as many clues for the audience to decipher this time and parts of the middle act feel like they could have been omitted, shortened, or made twice as long without impacting the larger story one bit. My favorite comedies are ones that actually make use of the story and situational humor and aren't just excuses for dick jokes, so making the story less important bothered me.
Don't worry. There are plenty of dick jokes, some including monkeys
But I keep comparing The Hangover Part II to the original film. How does it stand up on its own? If you have not seen The Hangover, then you might enjoy this movie. The monkey is kind of funny, Galifianakis has several small moments, and Ed Helms summarizes the plot through song at a seemingly random moment in the story. If you like gratuitous nudity in your comedies, there is a strip club scene. On the other hand, the most memorable nudity was male and played for gross-out laughs, so I suppose your appreciation will depend on your tolerance for that sort of thing.
Above: not a male nudity scene, but it totally could be
The story makes a deliberate point of not explaining some of the most obvious questions stemming from the "lost night," which is appreciated; most movies would have the most outrageous scenes center around those plot points (Alan's head shaving, Teddy's finger loss, etc.), but most of those answers instead came during the credits, as the guys look at some funny pictures.
Pages 60-110 of the script read, "and hijinks ensue"
But what if you have seen The Hangover? Well, then you've practically already seen The Hangover Part II. This film borders on being a carbon copy. The main plot drivers, the main characters, and the types of jokes are all the same (but less funny because you've heard them before), with a few things substituted and updated here and there. While it is perfectly obvious that this is a clone of the original movie, it is just as clear that Phillips & co. were well aware of that fact when making this movie. There are a few lines sprinkled throughout the script that point this out, but most of the acknowledgement almost seems metatheatrical. It's like the main theme of The Hangover Part II is that the movie is ridiculously similar to the outrageously unlikely story in Part I because Hollywood is always rehashing the same crap, over and over again. And yeah, sure, I can buy that argument, but it isn't funny enough to carry an entire comedic movie. Personally, that sense of the filmmakers winking through the screen about how clever they are reminds me of the "7211" episode of Sealab 2021, where the joke is that there is no joke. Only here, the joke is that they're not being original because sequels aren't original.
...until you add an adorable animal/midget/child to the mix
Part of me finds that incredibly annoying. I don't particularly like feeling insulted, and the blatant "this is what sequels do" attitude felt like the filmmakers were mocking me for watching their movie.
This is exactly how I envisioned Phillips watching me watch this movie
The other part of me remembers Todd Phillips' IMDb credits include exclusively stupid movies, so the likelihood of him purposefully insulting his audience is pretty unlikely. Alright, rational mind, you win this round. Still, that doesn't make The Hangover Part II a good movie. It's not awful, but it is missing most of the things that made the first one funny, like warmth, truly unexpected twists, and awkwardness.
When I saw the cast for Operation: Endgame, I wondered how I could have not heard a peep about this movie. Seriously, it has Rob Corddry, Ellen Barkin, Zach Galifianakis, Ving Rhames, Maggie Q, Adam Scott, Joe Anderson (from last year's awesome The Crazies), Odette Yustman (from the awful The Unborn), Brandon T. Jackson (from Tropic Thunder), Emilie de Ravin (from...um...Maxim magazine, maybe?), Tim Bagley, Michael Hitchcock, Bob Odenkirk, and Jeffrey Tambor. Admittedly, the cast isn't exactly full of Oscar winners, but I recognized every single billed actor. Somehow, the familiarity of the stars didn't gather enough interest to get this theatrically released, so straight-to-DVD it went.
The premise here is pretty simple ridiculously convoluted. There is a government agency that is in charge of super-secret black ops, but the agency was so dangerous (um...JFK, anybody?) that they needed to be kept in check. However, they also needed to remain clandestine and shadowy. So, the agency was split into two forces, Alpha and Omega, and they spend most of their time out-super-spying the other team, essentially canceling each other out. Every member of Alpha and Omega is a deadly assassin, but each has their own particular skill set. Each member also hands over any weapons as they enter the office every day and they are only referred to by their Tarot card-related code-names. And yes, these super-secret assassins all work out of the same cubicle-filled office. The movie begins with Fool (Joe Anderson) coming in for his first day of work, and we experience all the weirdness with him. It's not all fun and murder, though; the boss for the two teams, The Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), gets himself killed and a fail-safe self-destruction program is set off. Alpha and Omega have about an hour and twenty minutes (or, the run time for the movie) to either escape the escape-proof office, or disable the bomb. You would think that would lead to cooperation between the two groups, but instead, it leads to lots and lots of killing with non-traditional weapons.
Improbably sharp paper cutter, meet shockingly dead-eyed actress.
I'm not going to focus much on the acting in this movie, because there isn't really a whole lot of it. The dialogue is surprisingly funny for a direct-to-DVD release, but other than that, everybody is in this movie until they get killed. I am surprised that I actually enjoyed Rob Corddry in this movie; it's pretty much the same bit he always does, but a little less desperate and more vulgar this time. Ellen Barkin was also surprisingly funny and shockingly good looking for a woman her age. There were no other surprises in the mix, as far as the actors go.
The dialogue is the star of this movie. Every character is impressively witty and most are creative with their cussing and sexual references. Corddry and Barkin clearly had a great time saying so many awful things, but they had the lion's share of the good lines. Many of the actors spoke three or four lines total before getting killed, so it was hard to actually like any of the characters. That's kind of the point, though; these people are so evil that they supposedly have to kill a puppy to join the agency. Even the less evil characters, like the guys observing all the action on closed-circuit video feeds (Tim Bagley and Michael Hitchcock), are hard to like; in their case, it's because they're just there as reactionary characters that say "Ooh, gross!" when someone gets killed. Since every character is a deadly assassin, there are no innocents in this movie. Since there are no innocents in the movie, it's a lot harder to pinpoint who to like. In the end, you end up rooting for whoever you think is the funniest, and then they probably get killed.
There is a huge body count in this movie. It's not just the less famous actors who die, either. Every character is willing and able to kill any other character, so you might find yourself surprised at who dies when. Unfortunately, you probably won't be surprised by the ones who die last. This is a movie that wants to feel unpredictable, but once the movie is halfway through, you should have a pretty good idea on how it's going to end. That's not necessarily a bad thing (in broad strokes, anyway), but it is if the movie is putting a lot of effort into being clever.
The movie's not bad, but it's nowhere near as awesome as its script thinks it is. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first half of the movie, but it started getting formulaic and was pretty dull toward the end. This movie worked a lot better with (most of) the characters alive than it did with them dead. I like dick jokes as much as the next guy, but many of the characters used distinctly different types of sarcasm; the main ones left standing toward the end were basically telling the same jokes coming from different mouths.
Yeah, that's how I felt when the movie ended, too.
This was director Fuoad Mikati's first movie, and it's not a ad first effort. He lets the actors do their thing --- I'm guessing that he didn't handle them much, since they all act about as well as ever --- and he keeps the pace moving. Personally, I would have significantly cut down on Bagley and Hitchcock's screen time, but the movie wasn't even an hour and a half long, so it's not like they broke up the flow of the movie. they were just annoying. The special effects indicate that this was a pretty low-budget for what is essentially a funny action movie, so I think Mikati did a decent job with what he had to work with.
Having said that, I ended up not enjoying this movie. It had potential and there were a decent amount of funny one-liners, but that's about all it had. It misused most of the cast, killing several characters off early for shock value and not getting anything more than that. The story throws a couple of twists in, but the plot is so convoluted and stupid that you never care why things are happening, as long as Corddry gets to insult Barkin's vagina again. He does. And she gives a rebuttal. But that's only kind of funny. The action takes up a lot of the film, but it's not all that amazing, probably because it is performed mainly by comedians. Ugh, and Bagley and Hitchcock end up spending waaaaay too much time commenting on the fights they are watching; in an action movie, do you want to react to an awesome kill, or do you want some other, Rob Schneider-like character do it for you? I would have called this a perfectly mediocre movie, but I really hated those two guys.
