Good grief Penfold! It's February already. And what better way to celebrate, than to suffer (hopefully not);
The Hangover Part II
The Hangover Part II
So after watching The Hangover (Part I) sometime last year, not as a Tuesday Night is Film Night film I hasten to add, we chance our arm with the second iteration of the story. The characters are the same and the premise of the story is just the same as well. For those of you who don't know or just need a reminding, here's a brief synopsis of the characters.
Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug
(Justin Bartha) are four friends who first suffered the consequences of The Hangover (2009) when they hit Las Vegas for Doug's stag party. A couple of years on and it is Stu's turn to get married. Stu is to marry his fiance Lauren (Jamie Chung) in a quiet family ceremony in Thailand. However Stu's plan for a subdued pre-wedding brunch, followed by a quiet wedding goes seriously awry.
The film starts with the scene setting, re-establishing the characters and placing them within the current setting. Thus providing a springboard into the action. What essentially happens is that we fast forward to the aftermath, discover that they are totally wrecked and cannot remember a thing, then we wind back time and discover how they got there.
It's not an easy story to quantify without giving too much away. The premise is easy to follow, but it is how they get where they did that is the clincher. There is such a lot of detail that goes into the guys reverse engineering their hungover state, which takes them into the realms of the criminal underworld and the night life of Bangkok, which includes drug running monkeys and dalliances with Lady-boys!
Definitely a lads movie this one and a great deal of fun. As with the first movie Zach Galifianakis is fantastically funny as the idiotic Alan, who manages to get his Wolfpack buddies into trouble. Phil, is the cool character who tries to keep everyone together and Stu is the cry baby who seems to be ruining everything, especially his wedding. Doug doesn't seem to enter into the film at all, only as the sober one back at the wedding venue and as such didn't really add anything.
Mention must also go to the returning character of Mr Chow (Ken Jeong) who is also very funny and seems to add fuel to the lad's wild night. Another returning cameo appearance comes from boxing legend; Mike Tyson at the end of the movie and seems to be a bit superfluous and adds nothing to the film in itself, moreover it seems to be a blatant celebrity placement to endorse the movie. It only went to prove that Mike Tyson cannot sing.
That aside, the film is a great laugh. Even though it is a sequel the idea is still fresh and had sufficient fuel to carry it off, not so sure that Part III will do the same, watch this space. Also, it is one for multiple viewings as there will be jokes and visual gags that would be missed first time around.
To summarise; good film, lots of laughs, will watch again.
TNiFN Rating 73%
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