Movie Review: The Hangover Part II

Films rely on surprise to engage their audience. Much in the way that a horror movie wouldn't be scary if you saw the killer stalking his victim for five minutes in broad daylight, a comedy must rely on the unexpected to garner a laugh. Perhaps you see a punchline coming and it's more over the top than you expected or it zigs when you expected a zag. Revisiting a comedy you love is more about reliving the moments you found so hilarious the first time and still finding joy in them. But what if someone took a previous movie, reworked the barest of specifics in the plot summary and then slapped a “2” on it? You'd be expected to pay full price for a sequel that really plays like reheated leftovers...that were left out to get cold again. This is how it is for The Hangover Part II.

The Hangover worked for me because it was the first comedy in a long time that had all the zany ingredients of a “One Crazy Night” movie but didn't skimp on the variety. The premise itself allowed for the random scenarios to be tied into one story: a group of misaligned bros get plastered, forget what they did and spend all day wading through the aftermath of their debauchery to piece together what happened. It wasn't perfect but it scratched an itch, and as summer comedies went, it wasn't that bad.

So, with The Hangover Part II you get the same plot, the same characters, the same ridiculous scenarios and the same ending. Less time has been spent on creating punchlines and instead you get the same punchlines as before but put into a new context. Did you like Ed Helms' impromptu song about their misadventures in the first movie? He does it again only this time with a guitar. Did you like when Mike Tyson came out of nowhere to throw a left hook into the story? Happens again. Did you like that Zach Galifianakis was essentially used as The Most Inappropriate Human Ever and caused no end of frustration? He's worse here and at this point you'd think his “friends” would have known better. You could go through every ten minute block of the first movie and find the hits that made audiences roar, then compare them with the sequel and see that it's almost identical...minus the laughs.

Nothing says you can't take well established characters and find a new story to put them in that closely resembles their old story. But when your sequel is largely filled with moments that scream, “We know you liked this part in the last film, isn't it crazy that we did it AGAIN?!” it gets monotonous. If you have a comedy itch that needs scratching and you know that The Hangover Part II will be what does it for you, go ahead and throw your money their way. Just remember that you're telling Hollywood that this is the proper way to do a sequel. That's a mistake I never want to make, let alone twice, so I'll be staying away from the inevitable Hangover 3.