Too much Chow kills this cash cow.

Rating: 5/10 (9 June 2013)

Todd Phillips and Zach Galifianakis are both cynical, bitter filmmakers. This is essentially their middle finger to the fratboy crowds who swallowed up the first two films in the franchise. "Hangover III" is less comedy, more dark action thriller, and much of the comedy that does exist here centers upon sociopathic behaviour. Alan (Galifianakis) was always a somewhat disturbing manchild, but the first film played most of his laughs on the naive side. When he made inappropriate gestures with the baby in the first film, for example, and tried to show off to his friends, it came across like a little kid who's being naughty and is taking delight in being naughty, without fully understanding what he's actually doing. In the second film, however, when he sabotaged everything, he took on a more demented, decidedly self-aware tone. And in this movie, he's a borderline sociopath. His fascination with Bradley Cooper has gone full-on homoerotic (he suggests that he remove his shirt at one point), and his relationship with Chow is likewise odd. He cracks up while reading his rap sheet at a police station, chuckling at his charges for public masturbation and lewd behaviour.
All of this, I assume, was of great delight to Galifianakis, who can finally bury his Alan character after four long years. He's never been afraid to make it clear how much he loathes the success he's had with this film, mainly because of the type of people the films engender themselves to (he spoke on Conan about the frat bros who come up to him in public and ask him to come get high or quote lines from the movie). Galifianakis is a talented actor and was an alt comedian whose stand-up basically thrived on darkly subversive material mocking easy mainstream targets, not far from David Cross' blend of humour, so one gets the feeling that he and Phillips -- who has a similar distaste for the public at large (he did, after all, get his start with a documentary about GG Allin) -- really delighted in their free-ranging ability to turn the Hangover franchise over and basically just bury everything that made it appealing to audiences in the first place.
Cooper and Ed Helms look lost here, in it solely for the paycheck; the story is pretty insulting and doesn't really push them together in a believable way. It's not feasible that these men would still be having adventures together after the last two films, but where there's $1.5 billion dollars in worldwide box office, there's a way...
The film's biggest mistake also contributes to its misanthropic edge: giving Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) more screen time, effectively bumping him up to a 4th Wolf Pack member. He was the worst part of the first film, and probably the second as well: only tolerable in small doses and funny only in the scene where he randomly (and nakedly) jumps on the Wolf Pack in that first installment. Chow is a miserable, weird, uncomfortable character, not funny in the least bit, and Phillips decides to make him a central plot point of this sequel.
This wasn't as bad a movie as critics would lead you to believe, nor is it as unfunny -- some of the sociopath bits with Alan, despite their disturbing nature, are quite funny (I liked the scene where he asks Cooper's character if his shirt is from Diesel). I give the team behind it props for having the guts to completely depart from the formula of the first two, as well as the tone of those other movies, even if they took it the wrong direction as a result.
But it is the worst of the franchise, a clear death knell for the series, and not the 'epic conclusion' I was kinda expecting it to be prior to the reviews flooding in. The second film was the typical '80s style sequel that rehashed all the elements of the original (monkey instead of baby, tattoo instead of missing tooth, etc.). This movie doesn't do that, but in Phillips and Galifianakis (the two I pin the blame on the most) delightfully mocking their audience so flagrantly, it's pretty clear that this movie isn't really going to find much of an audience with anyone. I'm glad I saw it, it's not the worst movie of the year, and it's at the very least somewhat interesting because of its departing tone, but it's not really successful as action film or as a comedy, so it just kind of exists for no reason other than easy money for all involved.