Writer/director Todd Phillips reunites the original cast and adds a semi-funny cameo from former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson.
Characters played by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zack Galifianakis, Ken Jeong and Justin Bartha are sent to Thailand for the wedding of Helms’ character Stu.
-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.
The gang has a quick beer on the beach. A sip or two later and all goes blank. Hours later they wake up in a sleazy dive. Stu has a tattoo like Tyson’s on his face, and they find the ring finger and ring of Stu’s future brother-in-law. The rest of the 16-year old boy is missing.
No one remembers a thing.
Crafting a movie is an interesting and highly specialized art form. Great movies start with great writing. Some writers peck away in locked rooms. Others have an idea, get a good draft done and then look for collaborators. Too many writers follow formulas such as boy meets girl, they fall in love, a crisis hits, they fall out of love, then fall back in love and live happily ever after.
Yawn.
Then there are screenplays like The Hangover. It is a great example of free-flow writing. The original is laugh out loud, hold-your-sides, hurt you funny.
By the way, The Hangover is the top-grossing comedy of all-time and ranks as one of the funniest — if not the funniest — film I’ve reviewed in 20 years with the Tri-City Herald.
Can you imagine how much fun writer/director Todd Phillips and his two co-writers had writing The Hangover? It’s easy to see them lounging on a couch or in plush chairs with a few beers and just going with the flow. There are no boundaries, so one outrageous idea after another pops up. A few hours and maybe more than a few beers later The Hangover is born.
What makes The Hangover funny is spontaneity. As unbelievable as the original film is, the spontaneous actions of the characters and the outrageous situations Phillips and his co-writers put them in help you buy the premise. I still laugh out loud when I think of some of the scenes. My favorite is when the staff delivers their car from the hotel parking lot.
It’s a cop car.
There isn’t much to laugh about in the sequel, and it's back to writing.
Another type of writing is the sequel. The Hangover Part II is a perfect example of what is wrong with the writing of most of them.
Nothing in The Hangover Part II is spontaneous. Phillips didn't collaborate on the sequel with original writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The concept was created before the release of the first film, and the studio teamed Phillips with formula-prone writers Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong. Mazin wrote the Superhero Movie and worked on Scary Movies 3 & 4 and Armstrong helped pen Old School with Phillips and a few others.
The chemistry just isn’t there. That’s bad news for the characters and — unfortunately — you, the paying public. Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis are moved woodenly and lifelessly through a badly done clone of the original premise.
A hangover of a hangover is no fun. Neither is the hangover from The Hangover. To paraphrase statements by the characters, we’ve done it again doesn’t do it again.
Mr. Movie rating: 1 star
Rated R for mature themes, nudity, language. It opens Friday, May 27 at the Carmike 12 and at the Fairchild Cinemas 12.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it's your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on video.
2 stars to 1 star: Don't bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
