Movie Review: The Hangover 2

The Hangover II feels as if someone found a neat looking PowerPoint presentation template and decided to use it all over again for their next presentation only changing the fonts and colours. Shifting from Las Vegas to Bangkok, Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Phil (Bradley Cooper) once again screw up big time on the night of a bachelor party and find themselves one member short in the wolfpack the next morning. Last time it was the groom, Doug, who had gone missing. This time, it is Stu who’s getting married and Teddy (Mason Lee), his to be brother-in-law is not be found after a whacked night out in Bangkok.

The story follows pretty much a similar arc as the earlier film; only the jokes are grosser. And that takes the charm out despite Galifianakis’ best efforts at his brand of dead pan humour that lit up the first one, the only genuine laughs are when Ken Jeong pulls off his Mr Chow role (although he has only limited screen time) with aplomb. His is the only character who shows a new dimension while the rest suffer from unimaginative writing and pretty much zero character development (or regression, for that matter).

Perhaps commercial considerations and the need to play safe resulted in this film being pretty much formulaically faithful to the original, but the fidelity only increases the feeling of déjà vu and adds to the tiredness to the jokes. For the fans who just couldn’t get enough of The Hangover, it might be an  enjoyable trip, but for the rest it is not quite the bedlam in Bangkok you may have anticipated.