Was it as strong of a hangover?

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2011)

Was it as hard of a hangover?
Memorial Day weekend opened up with a bang yesterday as Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Hangover Part 2 opened up. It seems that this weekend was destined to be sequel weekend and I'm here to discuss one of the sequels and whether it's worth your valuable time. The Hangover Part II fits the formula that its predecessor did two years ago. Despite the pact that is made early on in the movie by Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) , the guys get drunk on alcohol, wake up in a hotel, and start their journey off to find the missing friend, the bride to be's brother Teddy (Mason Lee) whose finger is currently the only clue they have to the mystery. One phone call later from Doug (Justin Bartha) and the gang hit the Bangkok streets in search for the answers they so desperately seek. So the question is, was this movie worth it? Is the same plot and different location worth $8-$10 of your hard earned money and nearly two hours of your valuable vacation time? To help you make this decision let's cover some facts about this movie. First of all the movie is raunchier than the first installment of the film, especially a particular scene where transvestites and a night club are involved. The graphic depictions of police rioting, coke snorting, and the male genitalia are constantly thrown into your face throughout the entire movie, which depending on your humor can be a good or a bad thing. This graphicness even carries on to the credits, which provides a lot of information that the movie itself does not provides, and some of the pictures can be a little extreme, even for this movie. Constantly interspersed throughout the chaos of this movie, is Stu's constant whining, Phil's constant use of the F word and Alan's random comedy lines. The first two aspects are funny to a point, but quickly get annoying and predictable. Alan's contribution is kind of a 50:50 mix of funny and annoying for me. There are points in the movie where his one liners and actions are perfectly timed which made me laugh, or at least chuckle, during the movie. Yet there were times where I felt the movie centered too much on his comedy, and his lines were stale and annoying. As for the situations they were put in, I wasn't as surprised, shocked, or entertained as I was in Vegas. Most of the scenes were incredibly predictable and didn't seem as dire or extreme as what we saw in Vegas. With the exception of the nightclub, most of the places they visited were not really that exotic or scary, which left me somewhat bored throughout the movie. In fact if it were not for the monkey or Mr. Chow, then I believe this movie would have been absolutely dead. This brings me to my next point, fans of Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) will not be disappointed, as the maniacal, lack of morals, outspoken, Asian gangster is back. The stand-up comedian returns in all of his glory as his obnoxious voice fills the screen for probably a good thirty minutes of the movie. Mr. Chow makes a good portion of the plot and even when he is "chilling" somewhere off screen his actions are driving the plot. Yes if you thought the comedian was bad news in the first movie, then you have seen nothing compared to this film. Overall Hangover Part II is a diluted version of the first movie. The potential for the experience in Bangkok was just not reached, and it felt like this movie was somewhat rushed in the past two years. Again the acting is fine, and the comedy feels sort of the same, but it seems to me that this sequel could use a revamp. Despite some witty comedy and a very adorable and crafty monkey, this movie really did not deliver to the expectations I had for this movie. Thus my Robbie rating for this movie is about a 7.0 for this sequel. Intended audiences for this movie will include: Die Hard fans of the series, Bradley Cooper or Zach Galifianakis fans, people who like cute monkeys, and fans who like a lot of Oriental Humor. Avoiding audiences: People who are taking 8 year old to the movies, yes I saw a dad bring his son to the movie, people who are easily offended, and those who don't want to see genitalia on screen Until next time, this is rgkarim signing off.