Fanaticalaboutfilms Review: The Hangover Part II

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2011)

Hot off the heels of The Hangover, a massive summer success in 2008, The Hangover Part II reunites the wolfpack and the adventure begins all over again in another country and city.
This time around the setting is Thailand and Stu (Ed Helms) is the lucky groom to be. With the wedding taking place in Thailand to help Stu get along with his new relatives, the rest of the gang- Phil (Bradley Cooper), Doug (Justin Bartha) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) head out planning for a more relaxing version of their Las Vegas debauchery. This time however there is another party goer in the form of the brides 16 year old brother Teddy (Mason Lee).
Suffice to say the unthinkable happens and they wake up in the middle of Bangkok and each sporting a very impressive hangover again. Mr Chow (Ken Jeong) also returns and is given a more prominent role in this one with his extreme character providing some of the films more amusing moments.
The writers and director seem to have stuck to the same winning principals of the last film almost identically which you might consider to be a good thing. Yes it is more vulgar and over the top than the last one and they have tweaked it slightly but there is no real variation whatsoever from the original. The tiger is now a monkey, the broken tooth is now a tattoo, a character goes missing etc. This results in a very disappointing movie as not only are you getting the same jokes in the same order with the same characters but you can work out exactly what is going to happen next.
The original won us over due to it's outrageous and original scenarios, this just increases the outrageousness/nudity and thinks that's all that's required to create another success. Completely wrong. In fact most of the best moments come from the characters reminiscing about what they got up to in the first movie. If it wasn't for the nostalgia and likability of the characters that was build up from the first film, I would have struggled to laugh more than once or twice.
Although I wasn't expecting it to be as good as the first one, I was still hoping for an entertaining movie that could have at least tried to break slightly from the template of the first. Alas it fails to achieve this and the result is a distinctly average film that's just been rehashed. I'd rather have just watched the first one again to be honest.
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