Reviews

Is it cool to skip out on schoolwork and go to a midnight screening of The Hangover 2? Is it even cooler when it’s a weeknight?

Yes, the midnight premiere of The Hangover 2 has long been on my list of things to do (listen more in class is a few notches below), and it seemed the perfect getaway from tedious typing and the harrowing amounts of study heaped on us by mother nature (indirectly of course) and The Hangover 2 didn’t disappoint. By now you all know the drill, so it’s no surprise when this shock/comedy sequel follows a similar playbook that the first film did – only this time it’s set in Bangkok.

The tale of drunken misadventure picks up two years after the first film. Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are still happily married, Stu (Ed Helms) is engaged to some Asian chick, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has been waiting the whole two years for the wolfpack to re-unite (literally waiting by the letterbox for the call). Naturally, when they reach Thigh-land (as Alan calls it), Phil has more than his feathers ruffled by the fact that Stu is pussing out and not having a bachelor party. But what starts as a couple of beers on the beach…

The guys  wake up in some dingy room straight out of Linwood. No power, no one around that speaks English – they made Bangkok look like our CBD. Hope don’t float for these guys as shit gets worse real fast; Todd Phillips daringly taking audiences to a new low. The insight into Alan’s crib is what you’d expect to find at the house of a deranged lunatic after he’s been arrested; the rest of the wolfpack being unimpressed that Alan has framed all those wonderful memories from Vegas even though they all agreed that that night never happened. The most gag-reflexive scene has to be when Stu finds out his interaction with a Bangkok hooker wasn’t exactly “straight” up; his throat convulsions sending the audience into nervous laughter.

While the film pulls no punches with disgusting content (just the type of content we all love), it’s not so bold with its supporting characters, many of whom feel waaaay underutilised. Doug is made a redundant character, failing to go along with the trio of terror on their night out, while Jeffery Tambor and Paul Giamatti stand in merely for face value. Even Galifianakis seems stereotyped as the weird gorilla-man, some of his lines feeling forced just for comic relief. Bradley Cooper also feels slightly underplayed, Ed Helms instead taking a lot of the glory as his character finally grows the pair of balls he was so definitely missing for most of the first film. Yes, Mike Tyson does re-appear, and no, he can’t sing well, but his presence is welcome nonetheless.

Ultimately The Hangover Part 2 is a worthy addition to what we hope will be a trilogy. Who knows, maybe they’ll be unleashed in New Zealand…

Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis
Written by Craig Mazin & Scott Armstrong & Todd Phillips
Directed by Todd Phillips