An anxious sequel, more drama than comedy

Rating: 3/10 (30 May 2011)

I adored the original Hangover, and while I didn't expect this to be quite as good I didn't expect it to be this bad.
I don't mind the rehashing... with a sequel to that Hangover it has to be a bit tongue in cheek. But this is like a dark twin to the original movie.
The Vegas setup made, despite someone being missing, for a fun, uplifting movie. A sense of "oh I've been there" but with an exaggerated tone. It was all about what a great night they'd had and were trying to piece it together.
The sequel is the opposite, it's a dangerous, anxious movie. They are in a strange lady, and they've lost a 16 year old and his finger is in a bucket. It's a race to find this kid, and work out if he's even alive. There's someone who has unprotected sex with a ladyboy. Someone gets shot. Even the wedding was anxious because of the father-in-law. While I knew they'd find the boy in the end, it still leads to tension while they piece together a bad night (rather than the good night of Vegas).
In terms of humour, it wasn't also very funny. There were nuggets of potential jokes but they didn't feel well executed, which is surprising given it's the same director as last time. Mr Chow is excellent, but underutilised in this movie.
Then it ends with them finding the boy, who's missing a finger and laughs it off. Erm, yes. This guy who is a gifted musician and wants to be a doctor has lost a finger and doesn't care. And Stu isn't running to get an STD test before he marries his wife, which he would do if some random transsexual prostitute ejaculated into him. Maybe I'm taking this too seriously, but it snaps me out of the movie as a 'step too far'. Or maybe the step too far is the desperate inclusion of Mike Tyson at the end.
All in all, I was very disappointed - mostly that it took a fun evening with the lads where while they got up to mischief no harm was done and gave you a feeling of "what an epic night" in Vegas to this dark tale where there's just no enjoyment as to what they got up to the night before.