The Hangover Part II Reviews (2011)

The Hangover Part II opens with Bradley Cooper's Phil on a cell phone. He's calling the worried wife of one of his friends, who demands to know where they have been. Phil, standing sun-drenched, sweaty, filthy, seemingly beaten within an inch of his life, stares blankly into the abyss of where life has taken him. With his friends, Ed Helms' Stu and Zach Galifianakis' Alan, sitting behind him, similarly dejected, Phil says it all with one glib sentence: "We fucked up."

That is, almost beat-for-beat, how Todd Phillips' breakout 2009 comedy, The Hangover, began. Now we are in The Hangover Part II, and as that title, and this introduction suggest, we are in the same exact situation all over again. Except now the trio of amnesiac, self-destructive partiers are in Bangkok, Thailand instead of Las Vegas. However, the resulting plot doesn't deviate quite as much from the original film's trajectory as that change in locale might suggest. The Hangover Part II is like one long callback to the first movie. It's a lengthy series of, "Hey, remember when this happened?" jokes that perhaps are meant to be one, all-encompassing joke. It's kind of ridiculous how similar this movie is to its predecessor. Isn't that hilarious?

Sometimes, it is, though much of what made The Hangover so funny was how wildly unpredictable it was. In that film, Phil, Stu, and Alan were unknowns to us. Their personalities were wild cards, and their antics could not be foreseen. Here, we know them, and we know exactly what they're capable of. And throughout the script, written by Phillips and co-scribes Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, they do those exact things. Stu's seemingly mundane dentist has a penchant for whores; Alan is completely out of his mind and socially retarded; Phil is the asshole glue that somehow keeps them all together.

But now Bangkok has them, and presumably, that should be enough to propel them through another series of seedy, apoplectic misadventures as they try to piece together the events of a night gone so far sideways, it may have circumnavigated the globe in the process.

They are in Thailand for Stu's wedding to Lauren (Jamie Chung), a beaming, pretty woman of Thai descent. Her father has little regard for Stu's seemingly dullard personality and profession. As he puts it in no uncertain terms, dentists in Thailand are not considered real doctors. And that's one of their more pleasant exchanges.

Stu is hellbent on staying away from any of the antics that nearly ruined them in Vegas, but concedes to a single drink out on the picturesque beach near their resort hotel. He, Phil, Alan, Doug (Justin Bartha, the last film's missing victim) and Lauren's little brother, Teddy (Mason Lee, this movie's missing victim), all seem to have themselves a calm little get together. Then the night passes, and the trouble begins.

Remember when Phil woke up on the floor of a hotel in the last movie? He does that again. Far from the palatial digs of Vegas, now they are suddenly in some Bangkok roach motel, lacking in electricity, but replete with severed human fingers and a jean-jacket-wearing monkey. Even Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) is there, because of course he is. One person who isn't is Teddy. Stu can't return without Teddy, who Lauren's father cherishes above all else. Thus, the hunt is on.

If you've seen the first movie, you pretty much know how this hunt will play out. Clues are searched for, misbegotten places from the previous night are visited, terrible human beings from the previous night become reacquainted with the boys, and somewhere in between, Stu finds out he had another run-in with a hooker. The pacing of this movie suggests a Mad Libs tablet style of screenwriting. Did it happen in the last movie? Okay, let's do it again, but replace "Mike Tyson's house" with "a Buddhist monastery" and instead of "inexplicable baby," let's go with "chain-smoking monkey." And hey, we're in Thailand, right? So let's find a way to work in some ladyboys.

That isn't to suggest the movie is bereft of funny things. Quite the contrary, as some of it is very funny. It's just a kind of funny we're now intimately familiar with. We've been there with these guys before, and by the time we get to the inevitable during-credits camera roll of horrific photographs from the previous evening, the shock value just isn't quite there. Then again, it's pretty hard to top a picture of Galifianakis getting blown by someone's grandmother.

What holds The Hangover Part II together and prevents it from depressing retread territory is the cast. Where the script lacks innovation, the cast members compensate with great on-screen chemistry. Where the script forgets to insert jokes, the cast compensates with pure, manic energy.

Galifianakis in particular is the standout, yet again. His rendition of Alan suggests development less arrested than permanently incarcerated in solitary confinement. He does unhinged better than most any comedic actor, simply because he lets his sort of cherubic, soft-spoken demeanor portray it, rather than dominating via wild gesticulation and shouting--the movie has Jeong for that sort of thing. Cooper and Helms deliver expected, but enjoyable performances. They're here to suffer for our amusement, and they do it exceptionally well. The rest of the cast is solid, if underutilized. Paul Giamatti has a fun, brief appearance as a local gangster, Nick Cassavetes is appropriately Nick Cassavetes in his role as a foul-mouthed tattoo artist, and then there's that monkey. He's pretty good.

Go to The Hangover Part II expecting more of what the first movie delivered, and you'll be suitably entertained by it. Go in expecting surprise, shock, awe, or anything of the sort, and you'll be disappointed. Just pretend you're going to see The Hangover for a second time, after seeing it balls-out drunk once before. The details might feel familiar, but there will be so many holes in your memory that it'll seem like you're seeing it again for the first time.