Banana Scoop

Todd Phillips follows up his 100 million  dollar R-rated comedy hit in 2009 with a sequel set in Bangkok.  As with most sequels, there lies the difficulty in making it bigger, badder, and better than the first one and simultaneously maintaining a sense or originality.  Here in the Hangover Part 2, it doesn’t even look like Todd Phillips tried to make this second movie more original, as it’s a copy and cut paste from scene to scene.  And while the funny Alan jokes are still there and the slapstick is a bit more disgusting than the first one, the movie loses the general shock and awe that made us fall in love with the wolf pack in the first place in favor of shedding light on the dangers of Bangkok.  And with no change or twist to distinguish itself from the first one, it’s difficult to call Hangover Part 2 nothing more than a good reason to send these guys to a tropical paradise for a couple of weeks to reshoot a movie they already did.

When Stu (Ed Helms) is getting married [again], he sends himself and the wolfpack [Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper] to Thailand for the ceremony and to meet his fiancé’s family.  The trio have one beer next to a calm bonfire on the beach with their fiancé’s brother and next thing they know they wake up in a motel somewhere in the middle of Bangkok, with new slew of slapstick shticks: a tattooed face, a shaved head, and a highly trained monkey.  They find out that Stu’s fiancé’s brother is missing and set out onto Thailand in an attempt to regain their memory and find him

So let us take a look at the similarities between the two movies.  In the opening post-hangover night scene, you could literally put the two frames of the first movie and the second movie and watch them how to unfold side by side.  Throughout the movie, even the characters reference that ‘this happened again!?’and ‘what did you do to us this time, Alan?!?’.  I have mixed feelings about this, because I understand that the writers themselves know how similar this movie and they’re trying to make jokes based on that, but unfortunately not all of the jokes land and simply stating that this movie is like the second one doesn’t save it from the monotony.

Speaking of jokes, if this movie has a strong point, it’s the great use of their leads.  Each lead is has a specific type of joke they’re best at: Alan’s absurd one-liners, Phil’s slapstick and getting injured all the time, and Stu’s wimpiness.  These are direct continuations of the developments of the first one, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because each of them are so great at it.  But the spark in learning who each of these characters were is gone, and is almost expected from them.  By this I mean, I expected Alan to be making dumb jokes and Stu to be going through a personal turmoil throughout this movie, in contrast to when I saw the first one, it was a joy to find these things out.

As I mentioned earlier, to transcend the staleness of the original, Todd Phillips took them to Bangkok for more shock and awe to translate into giggles.  The setting is beautiful and is quite eye opening to the backstreets of Bangkok.  And with Bangkok, there’s plenty of material for our leads to play with [trannys, monks, etc.] that provide solid jokes.  Most of these jokes are involved with cultural clashes that I consider, in my opinion, as a low standard of comedy that is a testament to lazy writing.  But overall, the film is funny, and it’s an undeniable truth.  And a slew of cameos provide a warmth in our hearts as well as the return of Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow.  I half expected Liam Neeson and President Bill Clinton, but I quickly let it go.

While this seems like a good excuse for a production company to take its stars to paradise for a glorified vacation, I read in an article that this was actually a grueling shoot that had most of its team bending over in food poisoning, sickness, and fatigue.  But as a movie, it brings nothing new to the comedy genre and serves as a rehash of its original. Regardless, as a comedy it provides solid escape, and while you may not be quoting this movie as much as you quoted the first one, at least you can chuckle when someone mentions one of the few moment-worthy scenes.   And that’s about it.

2.5/5 Stars