Review: The Hangover Part II

The Hangover Part II could have been a great comedy had its script offered a single laugh.

That sounds like the ultimate way of damning the movie with faint praise, but I’m not trying to be cute here. I can say, without hyperbole, that not one line by screenwriters Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, and Todd Phillips is especially funny. There are some laughs in The Hangover Part II, to be sure, but they are the products of the actors’ delivery and what Phillips does in the director’s chair.

The story, as seemingly every moviegoer on the planet has already noted, is a carbon-copy of the first Hangover, transplanted to Bangkok from Las Vegas. Note to screenwriters: even though formula can be an effective way of getting people to buy tickets, it generally doesn’t lend to fresh comedy. This time around, it’s Stu (Ed Helms) who is getting married and, despite his best attempts to avoid another night of drunken debauchery, he and buds Alan and Phil (Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper) end up having exactly that. And just as they couldn’t remember where they left the groom in the first movie, this time they have lost Stu’s brother-in-law-to-be, the teenage Thai brainiac Teddy (Mason Lee). Another attempt to piece together what happened before they blacked out, so as Teddy’s location becomes clear, ensues.

It is the secondary elements that really sustain The Hangover II in spite of its failure to deliver consistently funny dialogue and ideas (which are obviously vital to the success of a comedy). First and foremost, the film represents Todd Phillips coming into his own as a director, as he crafts an immaculately paced and visually splendid ride. As an action movie, The Hangover Part II is actually quite good–one car chase sequence could pass muster in any other summer blockbuster–but it is unfortunately too caught up in attempting humor to work on that level alone. Phillips’ style lends to an actual movie movie and not just a comedy where filmmaking comes second; had the material itself been better, The Hangover Part II would have offered the best of both worlds.

Second, the performances / characterizations remain as infectious as they were in the first Hangover, saving the movie from becoming a laugh-free zone altogether. The writers would like the audience to think they are constantly upping the anti every time they reveal another stunt the guys pulled when they were raving drunk, but these revelations are actually pretty rote and mechanical. You forget about this as you watch the committed performances of Cooper, Galifianakis, and Helms, however, as they somehow sustain their over-the-top “I can’t believe we did that!”-expressions with gusto throughout. These are both funny and give the movie a sense of impending consequence-based irony. Cooper’s phone call to Stu’s fiancée at the beginning–“It happened again,” he deliriously confesses–is a perfect encapsulation of both traits.

But the fact remains that, despite the best efforts of its director and its cast, The Hangover Part II just isn’t funny enough. Given the movie has no pretense of depth, the laughs are what matter and, for the most part, they aren’t there. I was no big fan of the first film–it was vastly overrated–but at least it had its fair share of shocking and hilarious moments. The sequel boasts neither. Yeah, Galifianakis’ awkward delivery alone is worth a half-dozen chuckles, but never do they make up for the mediocrity of the rest of the movie. The Hangover Part II will sell a lot of tickets, but it is unlikely to earn the franchise many new fans.

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The Hangover Part II (2011, USA). Produced by Steve Bing, Scott Budnick, Joseph Garner, Daniel Goldberg, Jon Jashni, Chris Lowerstein, Todd Phillips, David Siegel, Thomas Tull, Vineet, and Jeffrey Wetzel. Directed by Todd Phillips. Written for the screen by Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, and Todd Phillips. Characters by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Characters by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Paul Giamatti, Mike Tyson, Jeffrey Tambor, Mason Lee, and Jamie Chung. Distributed by Warner Bros. Rated R, with a running time of 102 minutes.