An extreme comedy that focuses more on shock than on creativity

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2011)

This time around they are in Thailand. Like last time, they have forgotten their night out, and as Phil confesses on a cell phone call to Tracy, things are bad this time. The good news is, Doug is okay, bad news is brother-in-law Teddy is missing and their answers may have gone crashing into a glass table.
Bangkok is dirtier than Las Vegas, at least in this film it is. Everything is significantly grittier, darker, and ruder. At times Zach Galifianakis' character was less like the Alan we met first time around and more like Ethan from "Due Date". He was still very funny as are the other guys, but there was just an air of disrespect and insolence to the whole thing.
Their references to the original "The Hangover" were quite funny, and although I probably would have rather watched it, this was another original take with the same characters and formula that I fell in love with. I laughed not as often as I did the first time around, but I still laughed just as much as I was expecting too.
The problem when Hollywood gets their hands on a good idea, is that they need to make everything bigger and bolder. The jokes are more outrageous, less witty, their adventures are more shocking, less creative, and instead of intelligent, snappy dialogue we get chase scenes and explosions. Of course we do. They got to spend more than twice as much money.
Although "The Hangover Part II" is an inferior product to the brilliantly funny original, there are laughs and everything is more extreme as they promised.