Movie Review: The Hangover Part III
*1/2 stars out of ****
The Hangover was a summer surprise in 2009. The story of three friends who lose the groom during his bachelor weekend and can't remember what happened the night before became one of the top grossing movies of the year and one of the top grossing comedies of all time. With the first film's success it wasn't surprising that there was a sequel. The Hangover Part II was basically the original film, except this time the Wolf Pack ended up in Thailand. The sequel was alright. It recycled a lot of stuff from the first movie, but there were still laughs to be had. After, Part II's boffo box office, a third film was greenlit and news spread that The Hangover Part III would be the concluding chapter in the Wolf Pack trilogy.
The third film continues the story of the Wolf Pack: ladies man, Phil (Bradley Cooper), meek dentist, Stu (Ed Helms), and off his rocker, man child, Alan (Zack Galifianakis). The movie kicks off with the death of Alan's beloved father (Jeffrey Tambor) of a heart attack after yelling at Alan about growing up. This leads to an intervention for Alan. On their way to the rehab center the Pack are ambushed by a gangster played by John Goodman who also has "Black Doug" (Mike Epps) from the first film, in his employ. They are looking for Chow and send the Wolf Pack to retrieve them. Apparently Chow stole millions of dollars in gold from Goodman's gangster. They also take Doug (Justin Bartha) as inusrance. Of course they do. The hunt for Chow takes the boys to Mexico and back to Vegas, where it all began.
The Hangover Part III proves that there can be too much of a good thing. You get that feeling that director Todd Phillips was trying to make this movie feel epic. There is a lot going on and not a lot of it works. For one thing, the focus shifts away from the members off the Wolf Pack and onto Chow. Chow is a minor character that works best in small doses. With the amount of screen time he has, his schtick gets real old real quick.
On the flip side of that same coin, the focus of the Wolf Pack shifts squarely to Galifianakis, which works for the most part. He is the funniest of the three main actors and he provides some of the only laughs in the film. Watching the film, you get the feeling that Phillips maybe forgot that he was directing a comedy. It seems like he was so focused on bringing the films full circle and filling it with callbacks from the first film that he didn't worry so much about making it funny. The theater I was in was relatively laugh free. This was a movie where the trailer did it no favors. There could have been some genuine belly laughs if the trailer hadn't featured the giraffe or Chow parachuting from Caesar's Palace.
There is also a lot of violence in the film, which is not uncommon for these movies, but in the previous films, the violence has been played for laughs. In this film, the violence was just violent and it came out of nowhere. There are some filmmakers that can walk that fine line and Phillips definitely is not it.
The films have been pretty woman-lite and this film attempts to remedy that. There is a cameo from comedy's newest "It Girl", Melissa McCarthy. I love McCarthy, but she really is given nothing to do. She is basically playing a female Allen and the schtick just doesn't work.
Bottom Line: The Hangover Part III provs that the third time is most definitely not the charm. The conclusion to the Wolf Pack trilogy is a lackluster, laugh free affair, that does some damage to the reputation of the first film.
The third film continues the story of the Wolf Pack: ladies man, Phil (Bradley Cooper), meek dentist, Stu (Ed Helms), and off his rocker, man child, Alan (Zack Galifianakis). The movie kicks off with the death of Alan's beloved father (Jeffrey Tambor) of a heart attack after yelling at Alan about growing up. This leads to an intervention for Alan. On their way to the rehab center the Pack are ambushed by a gangster played by John Goodman who also has "Black Doug" (Mike Epps) from the first film, in his employ. They are looking for Chow and send the Wolf Pack to retrieve them. Apparently Chow stole millions of dollars in gold from Goodman's gangster. They also take Doug (Justin Bartha) as inusrance. Of course they do. The hunt for Chow takes the boys to Mexico and back to Vegas, where it all began.
The Hangover Part III proves that there can be too much of a good thing. You get that feeling that director Todd Phillips was trying to make this movie feel epic. There is a lot going on and not a lot of it works. For one thing, the focus shifts away from the members off the Wolf Pack and onto Chow. Chow is a minor character that works best in small doses. With the amount of screen time he has, his schtick gets real old real quick.
On the flip side of that same coin, the focus of the Wolf Pack shifts squarely to Galifianakis, which works for the most part. He is the funniest of the three main actors and he provides some of the only laughs in the film. Watching the film, you get the feeling that Phillips maybe forgot that he was directing a comedy. It seems like he was so focused on bringing the films full circle and filling it with callbacks from the first film that he didn't worry so much about making it funny. The theater I was in was relatively laugh free. This was a movie where the trailer did it no favors. There could have been some genuine belly laughs if the trailer hadn't featured the giraffe or Chow parachuting from Caesar's Palace.
There is also a lot of violence in the film, which is not uncommon for these movies, but in the previous films, the violence has been played for laughs. In this film, the violence was just violent and it came out of nowhere. There are some filmmakers that can walk that fine line and Phillips definitely is not it.
The films have been pretty woman-lite and this film attempts to remedy that. There is a cameo from comedy's newest "It Girl", Melissa McCarthy. I love McCarthy, but she really is given nothing to do. She is basically playing a female Allen and the schtick just doesn't work.
Bottom Line: The Hangover Part III provs that the third time is most definitely not the charm. The conclusion to the Wolf Pack trilogy is a lackluster, laugh free affair, that does some damage to the reputation of the first film.
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