Thus begins Todd Phillips's The Hangover Part II, the sequel to his box-office-crushing 2009 comedy. Again, Phil (Bradley Cooper)
is on the phone to Tracy (Sasha Barrese), the last film's nervous
bride-to-be. Again, he is explaining that he and fellow "wolfpackers"
Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) have, on the eve of a
wedding, managed to lose a member of the wedding party during an
apocalyptic boys' night out--a night of which, again, they can remember
nothing. From that unlucky phone call we will, again, rewind the clock
to follow the amnesiac investigators as they try to piece together what
happened.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Hangover 2 cast and crew
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Directed by
Todd Phillips
Bradley Cooper
Ed Helms
Zach Galifianakis
Justin Bartha
Ken Jeong
Paul Giamatti
Mike Tyson
Jeffrey Tambor
Mason Lee
Jamie Chung
Sasha Barrese
Gillian Vigman
Hangover 2 overview
Merely two years ago, The Hangover was released to both critical and financial success. Now, as expected, we are faced with the sequel which puts most of the characters back into a very similar situation that they found themselves in in Las Vegas. Admittedly, I didn’t find the first film all that funny. It had its moments, but didn’t really deliver any of the big laughs that I’d heard reports of. Because of this, I was a bit hesitant for Part II because sequels are usually not as good as the originals that spawned them, but this film was a special case. It turns out the filmmakers didn’t have to worry about it being better or worse because they basically just made the first film over again.
It begins exactly as the original did with Phil (Bradley Cooper) putting in a call to Tracy (Sasha Baresse) to tell her that his latest trip with Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Stu (Ed Helms) has gone terribly wrong. It then jumps back a week to show us how things got there. Stu has found the love of his life, Lauren (Jamie Chung), and it about to be married with the wedding to take place in Thailand. Phil, Alan, and Doug (Justin Bartha) all fly out to attend and, of course, they decide to have a drink together with Lauren’s brother, Teddy (Mason Lee), the night before the big day.
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The next morning finds Phil, Stu, and Alan waking up in a hotel room in Bangkok not remembering anything that they did the night before. Just like before, several strange things have happened: Teddy is missing having left behind a finger, Stu has a tattoo on his face, and Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) has shown up. Following any small clues they can find, they try to piece together what happened the previous night in order to find Teddy and get back for the wedding.
Now when I say they basically made the first film over again, I really mean that. Aside from a few minor plot details, this sequel follows the original pretty much beat for beat. We get the same opening scene, the same kind of set up, the following of the clues, a short list of wacky things that happened, a sudden realization of where the missing person is, a rush back to the wedding, and the pictures of what happened during that wild night.
I guess the writers, Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, and Todd Phillips, didn’t want to take the risk of doing anything different in case what they came up with was disliked by the public, so they just ended up copying what Jon Lucas and Scott Moore had done before. However, as an interesting side note, after looking at the final draft screenplay of the original film, it turns out that Phillips and Jeremy Garelick did uncredited revisions on the script (uncredited because of some strange WGA rules), so in a sense, you could say that Phillips was recreating what he already did as his and Garelick’s changes to the original draft by Lucas and Moore were quite substantial.
To be fair though, the writers of the sequel did come up with a few funny parts, which again makes it similar to the original in that there’s not a lot to laugh-out-loud at, but there are a few enjoyable spots. They try to squeeze a lot of the humor out of gross-out situations, which doesn’t really hold a lot of laughs, but does deliver a few surprises.
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The problem with it being so close to the original film is that it becomes very predictable very fast. Once you see that they’re not going to diverge from what had come before, you just get to sit back and wait for the sudden realization of the answer with everything subsequently falling into place. The situation may be a little different, but the development of the story will merely leave you nodding your head with each poke at the original film.
Speaking of which, that’s something else the writers do a lot of throughout this film. As if this sequel isn’t a big enough reminder of the first film, they threw in numerous references to the original as if to ask us “Remember when this story was fresh-er?” However, there is something that the filmmakers managed to do better with this sequel than the original, and that’s that they managed to cut it down and make it feel a lot leaner. Rewatching the original the other day, I was reminded how stretched out and lengthy it had felt, whereas this film felt like it went by much faster by having a lot of the unnecessary parts cut out and getting into the main story much faster.
Overall, your enjoyment of this film will correlate directly to your enjoyment of the previous film. If you liked it, you’ll like this one, if not, you won’t enjoy the sequel as it’s just more of the same. It’s just lazy and embarrassing that the filmmakers felt the need to Xerox the first film. There has already been talk from director/writer Todd Phillips about a possible third film acting as a conclusion to a trilogy, but not using the same template as before. It would have been great if they had chosen a new template for this film, but if the third film does end up happening and ends up utilizing a new idea, then perhaps it will end up being even better than the original and its clone.
It begins exactly as the original did with Phil (Bradley Cooper) putting in a call to Tracy (Sasha Baresse) to tell her that his latest trip with Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Stu (Ed Helms) has gone terribly wrong. It then jumps back a week to show us how things got there. Stu has found the love of his life, Lauren (Jamie Chung), and it about to be married with the wedding to take place in Thailand. Phil, Alan, and Doug (Justin Bartha) all fly out to attend and, of course, they decide to have a drink together with Lauren’s brother, Teddy (Mason Lee), the night before the big day.
.jpg)
The next morning finds Phil, Stu, and Alan waking up in a hotel room in Bangkok not remembering anything that they did the night before. Just like before, several strange things have happened: Teddy is missing having left behind a finger, Stu has a tattoo on his face, and Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) has shown up. Following any small clues they can find, they try to piece together what happened the previous night in order to find Teddy and get back for the wedding.
Now when I say they basically made the first film over again, I really mean that. Aside from a few minor plot details, this sequel follows the original pretty much beat for beat. We get the same opening scene, the same kind of set up, the following of the clues, a short list of wacky things that happened, a sudden realization of where the missing person is, a rush back to the wedding, and the pictures of what happened during that wild night.
I guess the writers, Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, and Todd Phillips, didn’t want to take the risk of doing anything different in case what they came up with was disliked by the public, so they just ended up copying what Jon Lucas and Scott Moore had done before. However, as an interesting side note, after looking at the final draft screenplay of the original film, it turns out that Phillips and Jeremy Garelick did uncredited revisions on the script (uncredited because of some strange WGA rules), so in a sense, you could say that Phillips was recreating what he already did as his and Garelick’s changes to the original draft by Lucas and Moore were quite substantial.
To be fair though, the writers of the sequel did come up with a few funny parts, which again makes it similar to the original in that there’s not a lot to laugh-out-loud at, but there are a few enjoyable spots. They try to squeeze a lot of the humor out of gross-out situations, which doesn’t really hold a lot of laughs, but does deliver a few surprises.
.jpg)
The problem with it being so close to the original film is that it becomes very predictable very fast. Once you see that they’re not going to diverge from what had come before, you just get to sit back and wait for the sudden realization of the answer with everything subsequently falling into place. The situation may be a little different, but the development of the story will merely leave you nodding your head with each poke at the original film.
Speaking of which, that’s something else the writers do a lot of throughout this film. As if this sequel isn’t a big enough reminder of the first film, they threw in numerous references to the original as if to ask us “Remember when this story was fresh-er?” However, there is something that the filmmakers managed to do better with this sequel than the original, and that’s that they managed to cut it down and make it feel a lot leaner. Rewatching the original the other day, I was reminded how stretched out and lengthy it had felt, whereas this film felt like it went by much faster by having a lot of the unnecessary parts cut out and getting into the main story much faster.
Overall, your enjoyment of this film will correlate directly to your enjoyment of the previous film. If you liked it, you’ll like this one, if not, you won’t enjoy the sequel as it’s just more of the same. It’s just lazy and embarrassing that the filmmakers felt the need to Xerox the first film. There has already been talk from director/writer Todd Phillips about a possible third film acting as a conclusion to a trilogy, but not using the same template as before. It would have been great if they had chosen a new template for this film, but if the third film does end up happening and ends up utilizing a new idea, then perhaps it will end up being even better than the original and its clone.
Hangover 2 review
Thus begins Todd Phillips's The Hangover Part II, the sequel to his box-office-crushing 2009 comedy. Again, Phil (Bradley Cooper) is on the phone to Tracy (Sasha Barrese), the last film's nervous bride-to-be. Again, he is explaining that he and fellow "wolfpackers" Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) have, on the eve of a wedding, managed to lose a member of the wedding party during an apocalyptic boys' night out--a night of which, again, they can remember nothing. From that unlucky phone call we will, again, rewind the clock to follow the amnesiac investigators as they try to piece together what happened.
And once again, less probably, the journey is hilarious.
Despite its slavish fidelity to the structure of its predecessor, Phillips's sequel manages to take each plot twist and twist it further. The wedding, this time, is Stu's, and the lost wolf--more a cub, really--is the 16-year-old brother of his betrothed, Lauren (Jamie Chung), whom she unwisely left in the pack's care. As Lauren's family is Thai, the wedding has been relocated from L.A. to a Southeast Asian resort, and the boys' contingent debaucheries from Vegas to Bangkok. This time, in place of a baby and a tiger, Phil et al. find themselves the bewildered custodians of a wizened monk and a chain-smoking monkey. (His French inhale is something to behold.) Rather than a pulled tooth, this outing's unremembered self-mutilation involves an amputated finger. And as for the sex-worker with whom otherwise mild-mannered dentist Stu has a fling--well, let's say she's rather more exotic than Heather Graham, and leave it at that.
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The Hangover Part II is, of course, crass and violent and profane in the manner of contemporary R-rated comedy. But to a greater degree than the first film--itself already a bit of an outlier--there is an underlying ferocity, even cruelty, to the proceedings: in place of the shit-and-vomit humor often encountered at this end of the MPAA spectrum, the gags here tend to involve fatal overdoses and graphic sexual intrusions.
Indeed, the comedy is not just black but noir--which is apt, given the formula to which Phillips has adhered so rigidly. The missing person, the seamy urban setting, the gradual accretion of clues: The Hangover films are, essentially, hard-boiled crime stories spun into comic depravity, heirs as surely to Hammett, Chandler, and Cain as they are to Apatow and the Farellys. This was central to the appeal of the first movie. Even as it found room for scenes with taser-happy schoolkids and Mike Tyson singing "In the Air Tonight," there was an uncommon meticulousness to its structure: It succeeded not only as comedy but, in its way, as mystery.
The formula works less well in the sequel. In part this is because the plotting is looser; in part because the gags and performances--Galifianakis's in particular--have grown broader; and in part simply because, unlike the first movie, this one doesn't have the chance to come at you sideways, to surprise with its novel model of comedy. It's a testament to the strength of that model, though, that despite its derivative nature and other shortcomings, The Hangover Part II is brutally funny. Again.
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