*Much* more painful than having a hangover

Rating: 2/10 (30 June 2009)

Like our intrepid protagonists, I think somebody drugged me before seeing the Hangover. This is the only possible explanation for why I found this movie so terrible while critics and audiences alike seem to rave about it. There were maybe two funny jokes in the entire movie. In between the offensive portrayals of minorities, women, and gays, the screenwriters managed to fulfill every 12-year-old boy's supposed fantasies: heart-of-gold strippers, hijinks with a tiger, a painfully unfunny Mike Tyson cameo, and the egregious use of tasers, among other overused tropes (Tyson aside). I'm guessing the director thinks that because the audience has in the past enjoyed scenes with tasers, the mere use of them in the movie instantly makes them funny. Not so.
What this movie lacked was everything that a successful film possesses: likable (or at least sympathetic) characters, some semblance of a realistic (or at least internally consistent) plot line, and an ending that satisfies (or at least relieves) the audience's journey. Instead, we get four unsympathetic, idiotic, unfunny characters. The conceit of piecing together a drunken wild night out could be funny - could be - but none of the jokes are funny.