A Finale to Remember

Rating: 9/10 (24 May 2013)

We have now come to the conclusion of Todd Phillip's Hangover trilogy four years after the Wolfpack took on Vegas and won.
The film begins in a prison in Thailand were a guard sees a riot in his prison. The guard walks through the prison to find that Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) has escaped through his cell, a direct Shawshank Redemption reference. Chow is running through the sewers where he gets away and ends up in the water.
After the opening credits, the films transitions to Alan (Zack Galifianakis) driving on the freeway with a giraffe he just bought. Alan is enjoying his life until the giraffe hits a bridge and gets decapitated, which then causes a wreck. Sid (Jeffrey Tambor) is not happy with Alan and tells him that if he doesn't get back on his medicine that he quit taking, he'll get cut off. Shortly after, Sid has a heart attack and passes away. At the funeral, Alan does a wonderful job of singing "Ave Maria" and gives a eulogy that insults both his mother and sister. His pals, their wives, and his mother meet to discuss getting him to a rehab center and know Alan won't comply unless Phil, Stu, and Doug take him there after holding an intervention.
On the way to the rehab center in Arizona, Phil's minivan is hit repeatedly and the Wolfpack are tied up by Black Doug (Mike Epps), who turns out to be working for a man named Marshall (John Goodman). Marshall stops them because of their association with Mr. Chow. Turns out that Black Doug selling the wrong drugs to Alan set off a chain of events bigger than they realized, that resulted in Mr. Chow stealing $21 million in gold from Marshall. After telling the Wolfpack about this, Marshall forces them to bring Chow to him or he'll kill Doug.
Alan convinces Mr. Chow to meet up with him while Chow is in Tijuana. They try to drug Chow to pass him out, but to no avail. Chow helps them get the gold he owes Marshall, but turns on the Wolfpack and steals Phil's minivan and takes it to Vegas.
The story is very entertaining with interesting plot twists that make this finale one to remember. Todd Phillips's direction here is not as good as the first, but he does a great job at keeping Part III entertaining and hilarious. Phillips also co-wrote the script with his longtime writing partner Craig Mazin. They do a great job of keeping the story moving forward and keeping the story entertaining and hilarious.
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha all do good jobs, but it's not much more than what we've already seen from them in the first two Hangover movies. Zack Galifianakis steals the show as this film is Alan's show. Zack does great at showing a wider range of emotion, even more than what Phillips got out of him in Due Date. Zack does great at conveying Alan's happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety. Ken Jeong is an even bigger laugh riot as Mr. Chow, proving once a criminal, always a criminal. John Goodman is awesome as the angry Marshall, who wants what Chow stole from him. Also doing a great job is Melissa McCarthy as Cassandra, a pawn shop employee who is what Alan would be like if Alan was a woman.
It was also nice to see Mike Epps come back as Black Doug and Heather Graham return as Jade, Stu's stripper ex-wife. I also enjoyed the cinematography by Lawrence Sher, who got some amazing shots of Tijuana and Las Vegas, especially the night time shots.