The Hangover Part II Review

• 2nd Jun 2011

Like a lot of people when I saw the first Hangover film, I didn’t have any expectations.  The trailer looked quite funny, and well, it had Bradley Cooper in it so if nothing else I expected a few good jokes and a couple of hours of eye candy. I don’t think anyone could have expected that film to become the global phenomenon it did.  I know people who claim that the Hangover is the funniest film they’ve ever seen and I certainly remember laughing my ass off over the closing credits as they showed the pictures from the night before.

The thing is, that is all I can remember laughing at during the first film.  The rest of it I have to say was a bit forgettable, it was funny yes, but like a lot of comedy popcorn movies when you try to remember what you laughed at once you’ve left the cinema you can’t.  However, The Hangover has somehow been granted status as the funniest film ever. It’s become a benchmark test of someone’s sense of humour and because of that, there is an element of Emperor’s New Clothes about it.  You don’t want to be the odd one out, to admit that actually you don’t think it’s the funniest film ever, that they’ve perpetrated a fraud on you and that the Emperor is parading through the streets in nothing but his skin.

The idea that it was the funniest film of all time, backed up by a massively successful box office meant that there was no way that the team behind it weren’t going to make another one. And it’s a shame in a lot of ways that instead of creating something new, they’ve stuck to the formula from the first film so closely that they’ve made a note-for-note remake.

Instead of Vegas, this time they jet off to the only place in the world with a seedier reputation: Bangkok.  Now, I’ve never been to Bangkok and any desire I might have had to go has been completely expunged by this film.  Where they managed to look at the seedy underbelly of Vegas, but still allow something of the “glamour” of the city to shine through, they’ve made Bangkok look nothing more than a dangerous shit hole with a few nice beaches.  If I had been on the Thai tourist board there is no way on this earth I would have allowed them to shoot on location.

They’ve found every dirty, slum possible in Bangkok to film in. I’m sure there are nice areas to the city; it can’t all be like that can it?  What’s worse is that while the wolfpack run around the place in a panic, Zach Galifianakis does his idiot bit as Alan by regaling them all with statistics on crime rates, death rates and accident rates.  It’s practically a character assassination of the whole of Bangkok.  And of course there is the notion that once you’re lost in Bangkok, you’ve had it.  Several times the phrase “Bangkok has him now” is banded about in a sinister tone of voice, like it’s the Bermuda triangle or something.

And of course someone has been lost in Bangkok.  Not Doug this time, but the bride’s naive 16-year-old brother.  The problem is that because you know the movie is note for note, you know immediately that he’s not been kidnapped and tortured (as much as they would like you to believe that he has). You know that they wouldn’t keep mentioning power outages if it wasn’t relevant to his location. Unlike the first film, I never really felt that any of the characters were in real jeopardy because you know it’s all going to work out. They’ll make it home relatively unscathed.  The groom will make it to the church on time, the lost member will be found and they’ll find in the final scene that someone took photos last night.

In addition to hurting the image of Bangkok as a city, they trot out every Asian stereotype in the book.  The 16-year-old little brother is of course a genius, already pre-med at Stanford.  His father favours him over his sister (a girl?  Pah!) and pushes him very hard to succeed.  Moreover, they’re in Bangkok right, and we all know what Bangkok is famous for.  They’re in a strip joint, so obviously that hooker one of their number slept with last night isn’t a beautiful Thai woman, oh no, she’s a beautiful Thai man with massive boobs and an even bigger cock.  <sigh>  How unoriginal. That joke was so lazy that everyone in the cinema could see it coming a mile away. The woman sitting next to my friend keep repeating “Oh my God, it’s a man, it’s a man, it’s a man!” long before the “big” reveal.

And while it is still shocking to see full frontal male nudity in a film, shocking doesn’t always equal funny.  For example the only swear word with the ability to shock was dropped about 15 minutes into the film. The audience gasped at its brazen use but didn’t start laughing.  It’s a cheap way to try to get a laugh and this type of lazy comedy is present throughout the film usually coming from the monkey.  He smokes, he masturbates, he pretends to give a blow-job to a monk.  I like puerile humour as much as the next person, but when the writing is so predictable that even I can see the joke coming it stops being funny and gets a bit boring.

The real shame was that by making a note-for-note remake they missed out on opportunities to shake things up and create a more interesting a funnier film.  For example, it would have been lovely if Doug hadn’t sat out all of the action again.  This time he may not have gone missing, but he left wolfpack early, before they were predictably roofied.  He spends the movie, safe and sound, back at the hotel, not really doing much. It would have added something if Doug had had a chance to be in on it this time, trying to piece together the previous evening’s antics. It would have shook up the dynamic and could have resulted in more laughs.  But why mess with a successful formula.

There were also a couple of odd bits in the film that didn’t really seem to serve any purpose.  In one scene they are on a river taxi and out of nowhere Stu has a guitar and starts singing about how Alan has ruined their lives again.  It’s a charming ditty, but I honestly can’t understand why it’s there or what it achieves.  Perhaps it’s just a chance for Ed Helms to show that he has range beyond running around the place screaming and looking like he might have a stroke if anything else happens (we could just watch the US version of The Office for proof that he’s actually very talented though…)

On the bright side, the cast looked like they were having a lot of fun.  And I’m sure they were, being paid to jet off to a tropical location and run around behaving like idiots must have been a lot of fun. It’s clear that the cast have got a lot of chemistry with each other and as long as they continue to make a profit at the box office, we can no doubt look forward to the Hangover Part 3, although that’ll mean it’s Alan’s turn to get married and I can’t imagine who they’ll cast as the blushing bride….

Suzanne King