I would honestly rather wake up with a hangover than sit through ‘Hangover Part II’ again. Even though I had extremely low expectations going into this film given the reviews I’d read, I still managed to come away feeling surprised by how bad ‘Hangover Part II’ really is. I also came away feeling perplexed about why it seems to be so difficult to make a successful sequel? Clearly the answer is NOT to simply replicate the storyline from the first successful movie which is exactly whatthe producers of this film decided to do – basically ‘Hangover Part II’ is same sh*t, different location.‘Hangover Part II’ takes place two years after the first bachelor party in Las Vegas. This time, Stu (EdHelms) is all loved up and set to get married in a gorgeous beachside setting in Thailand and he isdetermined not to let his mates ruin it. Nevertheless, the lads are back and Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) manage to give Stu a night to remember (or more aptly, a night to forget!), in spite of his insistence on a low key pre-wedding brunch in favour ofa bachelor party. Stu’s downfall begins as he finally agrees to one quiet beer by the camp fire on the beach to calm his pre-wedding day jitters. Cut to the next morning and Phil, Alan, and Stu find themselves in a sleazy Bangkok apartment with no recollection of what happened the night before.They also wake up to discover a freaky drug mule monkey, half a human finger, a missing brother-in-law, and a tattoo on the soon-to-be groom’s face.
Ken Jeong is also back as Mr Chow although this time he’s trying so hard to be funny, he totally misses the mark. As it turns out, Mr Jeong is a physician so has something to fall back on should 'movies' not work out.
I didn’t love the first one as much as most people seemed to but I really enjoyed it, and I definitely experienced many laugh out loud moments. Unfortunately, during the screening of ‘Hangover PartII’ I honestly struggled to get a smile up, let alone a belly laugh.
I wasn’t even going to bother writing this film up but it gives me the chance to award my first 1 star rating.
Sitting through this film really made me wonder about the process these blockbuster films go through before getting distributed. It blows my mind that nowhere along the way did a single producer/ editor/ actor/ friend once fess up and say – “Hey guys, this just isn’t funny”. Or perhaps they did but someone important decided they could make enough money out of it anyway by riding off the success of the first film. And they were probably right.
Only for diehard fans.......
