Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Movie Review: The Hangover Part II

I delayed posting my thoughts on one of the summer's most anticipated sequels because I didn't want to alter anyone's mindset going in.

Two years ago, I strutted out of the theater with ICEE in hand after seeing one of the funniest movies ever made. I didn't expect this one to top or even equal the first, but it didn't even come close.

The film's producers rushed this in order to take advantage of the hype created in 2009. Mission accomplished. It's made over $338 million worldwide just 2 weeks after its release. That's an amazing total for a comedy that takes place in Thailand with few action sequences and no superheroes.

But this was a pathetic attempt on the filmmaking front. The same premise was used, almost bit by bit, and it just wasn't that funny. What made the first one so classic was all the great one-liners throughout. Each line hit. The comedy never stopped, especially after repeating many of those lines to this day. In Part II, there is about 25% of the humor the first one had, and that's a generous estimate.

I can't blame the actors. The failure of this movie comes mostly from the writing. Completely uninspired. But Zach Galifianakis delivered as always. The couple lines I really laughed at obviously came from him. Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms weren't great, but that's because of the garbage material they were given.

Because of Galifianakis and an awesome monkey, I will not give this the grade it probably deserves. But it isn't one the worst comedies I've ever seen, it just should have been so much better.

Grade: C-


Check out the first one on Blu-ray:

2 comments:

  1. agreed- i hated how they tried to do basically all the same funny things from the first one (that song included!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I feel like most feel the same way about this. Gives me some hope that people know more about film (comedies, anyway) than I originally thought. Zach G said there was going to be a 3rd. Has to be better than Part II.

    ReplyDelete