Title: The Hangover Part II
Format: Blu-ray + DVD + Ultraviolet Digital Copy
MPAA Rating: R
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Written by: Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong, Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Justin Bartha, Paul Giamati
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Film Rating: 
Blu-ray Rating: 
Review by: Bill Jones
The Film
If The Hangover Part II had to be described in one word, it would be tedious. Luckily, this review isn’t limited to one word, so it can expound upon that idea to explain that watching The Hangover Part II is a chore. It is something to get through, almost entirely devoid of joy, both on the part of the viewer and seemingly on the parts of those involved in creating it. It is a movie that exists for no other reason than that the success of its predecessor all but guaranteed it would make money. And the parties involved simply showed up to cash in.
The Hangover Part II is, at the core of its plot, the same movie as the original, except it now takes place in Thailand, which makes it wackier and, you know…more foreign, I suppose. Essentially, it serves as a reason to up the ante, to make all the hijinks at that much higher of stakes, the consequences infinitely more disastrous and so on and so forth. The only thing that doesn’t get ramped up in the sequel is the laughter, as it is entirely possible to sit through the 102 minutes of this feature without letting loose so much as a subconscious chuckle.
The guys decide to party before a wedding to the point of blacking out, and one of them goes missing. They begin to backtrack to piece together the events of their night and find said missing person, discovering along the way just how much trouble they caused, now with the sobriety to vaguely retain that knowledge. Oh, but there’s a monkey with them this time and Ed Helms has face tattoo. Also, someone lost a finger. So…that’s crazy and stuff.
Zach Galifianakis’ character is the most offensive this time around. He manages to take everything about the character that worked in the first film and bastardize it to the point of being mind-bogglingly stupid. Another way to look at it is that he disobeyed the advice of Tropic Thunder’s Kirk Lazarus to “never go full retard.” Basically, it’s the epitome of what’s wrong with this film – it takes everything that made the first film so surprising and fun and strips it all of originality and joy, recycling it with the panache of a Lance Storm promo. A rehash of the first film’s plot could have worked, as its characters lend themselves to repeating past mistakes, but The Hangover Part II is grossly misguided, and this isn’t the film fans were looking for.
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray comes with five special features – an “unauthorized documentary,” “The Comedy Rhythm of Todd Phillips,” a featurette on Crystal the Monkey, a tour of Bangkok with Chow (Ken Jeong) and a gag reel. It’s all fairly straightforward, and with such a bad film the extras only speak to how devoid of character everything present seems to be. Long story short, it’s hard to like the extras for a shitty movie, and this collection of them does nothing to buck the trend.
For more info, hangoverpart2.warnerbros.com/dvd
Pads & Panels received a copy of the Blu-ray courtesy of the studio for review purposes.
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