Matt’s Review: ‘The Hangover Part II’ Was a Carbon Copy of the Original and Significantly Less Funny

GRADE: C-

Above is one of the only things to stand out in The Hangover Part II. The three actors? The re-hashed phone conversation? Galfianakis’ head shaved? Nope. My favorite thing about this film was the cinematography and vision from director Todd Phillips (Road Trip). Phillips has always had a good eye for action — shown in the car chase scene — he knows how to tell a story visually, and he can shoot landscapes — shown in the picture above. The testament to how disappointing this film was can be clearly understood with my adoration for the camerawork in a raunchy moronic comedy like this.

There are of course other redeemable qualities to this film like the soundtrack, scattered laughs, and cast chemistry. But these should not be the first things said when judging a comedy like this. One should go on rehearsing funny one-liners, recalling a surprising turn of events, or discussing the appeal of the story. The Hangover Part II was not successful to me because of how it failed in key areas such as these. But of course, comedy is subjective — what is funny to one may not be funny to another. In the screening I attended, people were laughing uncontrollably during parts I thought were ridiculously over the top and forced attempts at laughter. To me, there were not many big laughs in this film; hence my disappointment in the final product.

Another demerit is the sequel playing as a beat for beat remake of the first one. Saying this movie is similar to the first is a gross understatement. It’s almost as if Todd Phillips and his writing team opened The Hangover script in Microsoft Word and simply modified the original into a “new” film. Subtract Vegas and add Bangkok. Subtract the tiger from the bathroom and add a monkey who initially appears in… the bathroom. Subtract Stu pulling out his own tooth and add the dentist getting a Mike Tyson tattoo. Subtract a lost groom-to-be and add a lost brother-in-law-to-be. The parallels don’t stop there, but in the interest of keeping you reading, I’ll stop. And when I say parallels, I don’t mean similarities, I mean almost mirror images.

Can this formula equate to success for some? Sure. Could it for me? Absolutely not. I cannot imagine a situation where I would enjoy watching something as unoriginal as this. I could take The Wolfpack ending up having another forgotten night of drunken partying, but for it to play out in almost the same fashion with the same circumstances with the same plot structure is too far fetched for me. Granted it is a comedy, but come on… can’t you imagine something remotely new? Why does it have to be the same? I think audiences could laugh and love a different story. People are enamored with the characters — safe to say you could tell a new story and audiences could still identify with the familiar faces. This carbon copy story and plot is the biggest reason why this film was so unsuccessful in my book.

Overall, The Hangover Part II is one of the most uncreative movies I have ever seen. With the topic of drunken stupor, one could go anywhere with the story. Instead, Todd Phillips and his writing team chose the conservative route and mimicked the first film as much as they could to capitalize on its success. This comes off as lazy and disrespectful to the audience not even trying anything original. For the Bangkok bachelor party being so much like Vegas go-round, the viewers could predict what was coming next — the surprise was gone making it consequently less funny. I laughed here and there, but this comedy lacked laughs preventing me from really enjoying this film and getting past the trite plot.

What Should You Do? This movie should be hit or miss with The Hangover fans. I won’t say stay away, but I surely won’t recommend people spending money on it.

– SPOILER ALERT –

The finale of the film was the icing on the cake for my dislike of The Hangover Part II. The film quickly wraps up serious conflicts with simple exchanges of dialogue between the characters which in turn fixes all the problems. The father-in-law despises Stu the entire film; but with one drawn out assertive speech, the stereotypical Asian father turns to like Stu instantaneously. Ridiculous. I not only hated the speech, but was really pissed when the father loses all uncertainty he has about the wedding in one fell swoop. I mean, come one… the father made his whole engagement dinner toast discussing Stu as a bland sissy.

But that isn’t even the worst part of the ending. That comes from the prodigy Cello player and future surgeon losing a finger so nonchalantly. He doesn’t care, his family doesn’t care — he just lost his ability to play his instrument with the same expertise, and his future life in the medical field will be impacted. But no one cares or regards this set back. This is a comedy and it doesn’t need to be overly serious, but some mention of this drastic loss of an appendage will help the audience to not shake their heads in disgust at the lack of shock surrounding Teddy’s loss.