A whole lot of crappy sequels have been made this same way

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2011)

Boy, there's every reason in the world for this movie to suck. It basically tells the exact same story in the exact same way as the first film, but a little more sloppily constructed and just taking what people loved in the original and cranking it up a notch or three. That approach has produced some truly awful sequels. However, The Hangover Part II is not one of them.
Why? Partly because the script is still full of laugh-out-loud moments. Partly because the three main characters and the actors who play them still connect with the audience. Mostly, though, it's because these filmmakers made a pretty bold creative choice that aesthetically redeems the otherwise repetitive nature of this motion picture.
This time around, timid dentist Stu (Ed Helms), his inappropriate friend Phil (Bradley Cooper) and the socially inept Alan (Zach Galifianakis) wake up in Bangkok with no memory of what happened the night before. The three are in Thailand, along with the missing-for-most-of-the-first-movie Doug (Justin Bartha), for Stu's wedding to the lovely Lauren (Jaime Chung). Only now, it's Lauren's little brother Teddy (Mason Lee) who's missing after his night of debauchery with The Wolfpack and the boys have to retrace their steps through the fetid streets and around monkeys, international criminals and transsexual strippers to find him.
That sounds exactly like the first film, doesn't it? Well, it is in most ways. To the folks put off by that, there's really no arguing the point. If you're rubbed the wrong way by seeing another version of what you've seen before, that's not an invalid reaction, especially as this is an inferior version in one big way. While the first movie was about all three main characters, each playing a part and having their own story being told, The Hangover Part II is dominated by Stu and Alan. Phil, who was one of the best things about the first movie, is reduced to tagalong. Frankly, if Bradley Cooper had held out for more money, they could have replaced Phil with Doug and it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
What saves this film from disaster is that these filmmakers chose to make a much darker movie than the first one. Not only in being raunchier and more outrageous, but in generating a sense of menace and danger that didn't exist before. I mean, nobody ever thought something really bad would happen to Doug in The Hangover, did they? Yes, they might not find him in time for his wedding, but there was never any doubt that he'd eventually turn up, was there? The Hangover Part II starts its search for Teddy by finding his severed finger, setting a tone that continues through the whole story. From the squalor of Bangkok to the more extreme physical transformations of Stu and Alan to the enhanced isolation of being in a foreign country without anything familiar to fall back on, this has such a different and more intense feel to it that you're not bothered when it duplicates what happened before. If this wasn't a blockbuster sequel and therefore required to have a happy ending, The Hangover Part II should have logically concluded with a wickedly black moment of comedy that would make even Norm Macdonald a little uncomfortable. We don't get that ending, but that sense flows through everything leading up to the conclusion, giving this film a decidedly different vibe.
I'm not sure they'll be able to get away with it a third time but while slightly inferior to the original, this is one sequel that manages to validate its existence and reward everyone for coming back for more.